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The Nation as Object: Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar RomaniaAuthor(s): Marius TurdaReviewed work(s):Source: Slavic Review, Vol. 66, No. 3 (Fall, 2007), pp. 413-441Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20060295 .

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7/27/2019 20060295.pdf


The Nation

as

Object:

Race, Blood,

and

Biopolitics

in

Interwar Romania

Marius

Turda

Introduction:

Biopolitics

and National Politics

In

1926,

the

Romanian

social

hygienist

and

eugenicist

Iuliu

Moldovan

published Biopolitica,

a

book

Maria Bucur

described

as

a

manifesto that

called

for

a

total

eugenic

state

based

on

biological

principles?an

entirely

new

way

of

organizing politics

in

Romania. 1

By

introducing

biopolitics

into Romanian

public

discourse,

Moldovan

was

not

just

adopting

a

char

acteristically

versatile modernist

term,

he

was

also

investing

it

with

a

specific

national

mission:

to

direct

disparate

narratives

of

historical

expe

rience

and cultural traditions toward the idea

of

improving

the

racial

qualities

of

the nation.2

The

nation

was

portrayed

as a

living organism,

functioning according

to

biological

laws

and

embodying

great

physical

qualities,

symbols

of

innate virtues transmitted from

generation

to

gener

ation.

Equally

important,

the

relationship

between

nation

and

state

was

turned into

a

specific

scientific

form of

knowledge,

one

based

on

biology.

Biopolitics

thus

operated through investigations

of

biological

processes

regulating

the triadic

relationship

between

individual,

nation,

and state.3

Research for this article

was

funded

by

the

Marie

Curie

Fellowship.

I

would also like

to

thank

Robert

Pyrah,

Matt

Feldman,

and the

anonymous

referees

at

Slavic

Review

for their

con

structive

comments

and

suggestions.

I

am

deeply

indebted

to

Mioara

Georgescu

and

Dr.

Sanda Hondor from Biblioteca Documentara de Istoria

Medicinii

a

Institutului de

S?n?tate

Publica, Bucharest;

Nicolae Leasevici from Institutul de

Antropologie

Fr. I.

Rainer,

Bucharest;

and Ioana Patriche

and

R?zvan

P?r?ianu

for

helping

me

locate articles and

books.

1.

Iuliu

Moldovan,

Biopolitica

(Cluj,

1926).

See also

Maria

Bucur,

Eugenics

and Mod

ernization

in

Interwar

Romania

(Pittsburgh,

2002),

83.

Many

of

Moldovan's

biopolitical

ideas

resurfaced in articles

and

books he

published

in

the 1940s.

See,

for

example,

I.

Moldovan,

Statut

etnic

(Sibiu,

1943)

and

Moldovan,

Introducere ?n

etnobiologie

si

biopolitica

(Sibiu,

1944).

2. The first discussion of biopolitics was

attempted

in 1911 in the modernist

journal

TheNewAgein

reference

to

policies

of

public

health,

reproduction,

and

social

welfare. This

article established

a

strong

connection

between

these

policies

and

the

state,

which

was

seen as

the

only

institution

capable

of

implementing

those

policies.

See

G.

W.

Harris,

Bio

Politics,

The New

Age

10,

no.

9

(28

December

1911):

197. Another

trend

was

to

insist

on

the fusion

between

political

science and materialist

sociology

in

order

to

explain

the

func

tioning

of the

state

as

a

biological

organism.

One

such

interpretation

was

first

suggested

by

Morley

Roberts,

Bio-Politics: An

Essay

in

the

Physiology, Pathology

and

Politics

of

the

Social and

Somatic

Organism

(London,

1938).

For

an

early

conceptualization

of this

direction,

see

Al

bert

Somit,

Biopolitics,

British

Journal ofPolitical

Science

2,

no.

2

(1972):

209-38;

for

more

recent

developments,

see

Ira

H.

Carmen,

Biopolitics:

The

Newest

Synthesis?

Genetica99,

nos.

2/3

(1997):

173-84.

3.

It

was

largely

in this

sense

that Michel

Foucault

employed

the

term

in the

late

1970s,

in

connection

with

his

theory

of

governmentality.

See

Michel

Foucault,

Naissance

de

la

biopolitique:

Cours

au

Coll?ge

de France

(1977-1978)

(Paris, 2004);

and Maarten

Simons,

Learning

as

Investment: Notes

on

Governmentality

and

Biopolitics,

Educational

Philoso

phy

and

Theory

38,

no.

4

(2006):

523-40.

An

enlarged

definition

was

proposed

by

Edward

Ross

Dickinson,

according

to

whom

biopolitics

should

include medical

practices

from

re

gimes

of

personal

hygiene

to state

organized

public

health

campaigns

and

institutions;

Slavic

Review

66,

no.

3

(Fall 2007)





7/27/2019 20060295.pdf


414

Slavic

Review

Ultimately,

Moldovan

insisted,

biopolitics

should

become

national

poli

tics.

How

was

this

transformation

possible?

During the interwar period, biological concepts became necessary

components

of

national

identity.4

In

addition,

eugenics,

racial

anthropol

ogy,

and

serology

received official endorsement

from

governments

and

political regimes throughout

Europe.5

Accompanying

this

transformation

of the

national

body

into

an

object

of

political

adoration

was

the

elevation

of

biopolitics

as

the

emblematic

symbol

of

modern

theories

of national

identity;

indeed,

the

fusion between the

need

for

biological

identification

and

the

quest

for

national

rejuvenation

contributed

to

the

transformation

of

biopolitics

into

national

politics.

Yet

in

most

scholarship dealing

with interwar

Romania,

biopolitics

has

not received the attention it deserves. The

emphasis

is either on

literary

and

religious

constructions of

national

identity

or on

cultural

politics

and

generational

conflict.6

According

to

this

interpretation,

participants

in

the

debate

about

the nation

appropriated

themes that

were

created

by

succes

sive

generations

of

poets,

linguists,

and

historians.7 There

are a

few notable

exceptions, including

Maria Bucur's

above-mentioned

study

of

the

history

of Romanian

eugenics,

Radu Ioanid's

examination of

the

politics

of the

social

welfare

programs;

racial

sciences,

from

physical

anthropology

to

the

various racial

theories;

eugenics

and the science

of

heredity;

demography,

scientific

management

and

occupational

health;

and the related

disciplines

and

practices

such

as

psychiatry

and

psy

chology.

See

Edward Ross

Dickinson,

Biopolitics,

Fascism,

Democracy:

Some

Reflections

on

Our Discourse about

'Modernity,'

Central

European

History

37,

no.

1

(2004):

3-4.

4.

Zygmunt

Bauman,

Modernity

and Ambivalence

(Ithaca,

1991);

Ann

Laura

Stoler,

Race and the Education

of

Desire: Foucault

s

History of

Sexuality

and the

Colonial

Order

of Things

(London, 1995);

Tzvetan

Todorov,

Hope

and

Memory:

Lessons

from

the Twentieth

Century

(Princeton, 2004)

;

and

Roger

Griffin,

Modernism and

Fascism: The Sense

of

a

Beginning

under

Mussolini and

Hitler

(London,

2007).

5.

Margit

Sz?ll?si-Janze,

ed.,

Science

in

the Third Reich

(Oxford, 2001);

and

Marius

Turda and Paul

J.

Weindling,

eds.,

Blood and Homeland :

Eugenics

and

Racial

Nationalism

in

Central

and

Southeast

Europe,

1900-1940

(Budapest, 2006).

6.

Much

of the

recent

literature

dealing

with nationalism

in

interwar

Romania

is in

debted

to

Benedict Anderson's influential

conceptualization

of the nation

as

a

cultural,

imagined

artifact. See Benedict

Anderson,

Imagined

Communities:

Reflections

on

the

Origin

and

Spread of

Nationalism

(London,

1986).

According

to

Anderson,

the idea of

race

does

not

play

an

important

role

in

shaping

nationalist

imagination.

For

a

different

view,

see

Nancy Leys

Stepan,

The Hour

of Eugenics :

Race, Gender,

and Nation in Latin America

(Lon

don,

1991)

;

Ann

Laura

Stoler,

Carnal

Knowledge

and

Imperial

Power: Race and the

Intimate in

Colonial Rule

(Berkeley,

2002);

and Marius

Turda,

The Idea

of

National

Superiority

in

Central

Europe,

1880-1918

(New

York,

2005).

7. See

Katherine

Verdery,

National

Ideology

and

National

Character in

Interwar

Ro

mania,

and Keith

Hitchins,

Orthodoxism:

Polemics

over

Ethnicity

and

Religion

in

In

terwar Romania, both in Ivo Banac and Katherine

Verdery,

eds., National Character and

National

Ideology

in Interwar Eastern

Europe

(New

Haven,

1995),

103-33 and

135-56;

Katherine

Verdery,

National

Ideology

under Socialism:

Identity

and Cultural Politics

in

Ceaus

escus

Romania

(Berkeley,

1991);

Sorin

Alexandrescu,

Paradoxul

rom?n

(Bucharest, 1998);

Irina

Livezeanu,

Cultural Politics

in

Greater

Romania:

Regionalism,

Nation

Building

and Ethnic

Struggle,

1918-1930

(Ithaca,

1995);

and

Irina

Livezeanu,

Generational Politics and the

Philosophy

of

Culture: Lucian

Blaga

between Tradition and

Modernism,

Austrian

History

Yearbook^

(2002):

207-37.





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Race,

Blood,

and

Biopolitics

in Interwar

Romania

415

Iron

Guard,

as

well

as

Viorel

Achim 's

and Michael

Wedekind's

investiga

tions

of Romanian

ethnopolitics

during

the

1930s

and 1940s.8

Romanian

philosophers

and

literary

critics

did, however,

make

use

of

racial

typologies

and racial

arguments

in

their definitions of the

nation,

and

it is

essential

that

their

presence

in

the cultural and

political

debates

of

the

interwar

period

be

acknowledged.9

Complementing literary

defini

tions

of

national

identity,

Romanian

eugenicists

and

anthropologists

fo

cused

on

physical

objects,

such

as

crania and various

archaeological

arti

facts.

By conducting

technical

experiments,

such

as

cataloguing

and

classifying

the

blood

groups

within

the

population,

they

hoped

to create

what

they

considered

to

be scientific

knowledge

about

the nation. In

other

words,

eugenics

and racial

anthropology

aimed

at

creating

a

na

tional ontology, wherein the nation as object was deemed paramount.

These

physical

representations

of the

nation

allowed

eugenicists

and

an

thropologists

to

engage

in

allegedly objective

incursions into

the

ethnic

fabric of

society,

contrasting

their

interpretations

of national

identity

with

those viewed

as more

subjective,

particularly

literary

texts.

In

this

article,

I

will

look

at

Romanian

anthropological

and

serologi

cal research

during

the interwar

period

and

examine

how

it

shaped

biopolitical

visions of

an

idealized

Romanian

Volksgemeinschaft.10

At the

time,

the

physical

contours

of

the

nation

captured

the

attention of

spe

cialists and

lay

commentators

alike,

from

skeptical

believers

in

the histor

ical

destiny

of the nation to those obsessed with national essence and

specificity.

In

this

context,

anthropological

and

serological

research

pro

vided

scientific

legitimacy

to

the

assumption

that there

was a

racial

nu

cleus

within the

Romanian nation

that

the

natural

and

social

environment

could

not

obliterate;

this

racial

nucleus

was

what

anthropology

and serol

ogy

identified

as

Romanian.

8.

Radu

Ioanid,

The

Sacralised

Politics

of

the

Romanian

Iron

Guard,

Totalitarian

Movements

and

Political

Religions

5,

no.

3

(2004):

419-53;

Viorel

Achim,

Romanian

German

Collaboration

in

Ethnopolitics:

The Case of

Sabin

Manuil?,

in

Ingo

Haar and

Michael

Fahlbusch,

eds.,

German Scholars and Ethnic

Cleasing,

1919-1945

(New

York,

2005),

139-54;

and Michael

Wedekind,

Wissenschaftsmilieus und

Ethnopolitik

im

Rum?nien

der

1930/40er

Jahre,

in

J?rgen

Reulecke,

Josef

Ehmer,

und Ursula

Ferdinand,

eds.,

Her

ausforderung Bev?lkerung :

Festschrift

zum

80.

Geburtstag

Rainer

Mackensens

(Wiesbaden,

2007).

9.

See H.

Sanielevici,

De

ce rasa

e

poporul

rom?n,

in H.

Sanielevici,

Noiprobl?me

lit

erare,

politice,

sociale

(Bucharest,

1927),

127-36;

H.

Sanielevici, Rasa,

limba

?i

cultura

b??tina?ilor

Daciei,

in

H.

Sanielevici,

Literatura

si

suinta

(Bucharest,

1930),

17-46;

Ion Pil

l?t,

Rassengeist

und

v?lkische Tradition

in

der

neuen

rum?nischen

Dichtung

(Jena,

1939);

C.

R?dulescu-Motru, Rassa,

cultura si

nafionalitatea

in

filozofia

istoriei,

Arhivapentru

sti

in?a

si

reforma

social?

4,

no.

1

(1922):

18-34;

and

Garabet

Ibr?ileanu,

Caracterul

specific

?n literatura, Operen (Bucharest, 1977), 92-94.

10.

Unfortunately,

space

limitations do

not

permit

me

to

deal

here

with Saxon

racial

research

in

Transylvania

during

the

interwar

period,

Austrian

racial

research in the

Banat

during

the

1930s,

or

Hungarian serology

in

northern

Transylvania

after

1940.

Hence

racial

research

in

this

article is

referred

to

as

Romanian,

as

it deals

only

with

Romanian

re

searchers. For the

Austrian

research in

the

Banat,

see

Maria

Teschler-Nicola,

'Volks

deutsche' and

Racial

Anthropology

in

Interwar

Vienna:

The

'Marienfeld

Project,'

in

Turda and

Weindling,

eds.,

Blood

and

Homeland,

55-82.





7/27/2019 20060295.pdf


416

Slavic

Review

After

World

War

I,

Romania's

territory

nearly

doubled.

It included

the

ethnically

diverse

regions

of

Transylvania,

Bessarabia,

and

northern

Bukovina,

thus

prompting

the

Romanian

state to

engage

in

an

unparal

leled

process

of

nationalization and centralization.11

Not

surprisingly,

ad

dressing

Romania's ethnic

diversity

became central

to

biopolitical

pro

grams

elaborated

during

the

interwar

period.

Both

anthropology

and

serology

devoted considerable attention

to

the

ethnic

map

of

Romania,

in

general,

and

Transylvania,

in

particular.

Not

only

was

this

region

notori

ously

multiethnic;

Romanian

nationalists

traditionally

viewed it

as

the

cradle

of the Romanian nation

despite

its

long

inclusion

in

the

Kingdom

of

Hungary.12 Anthropologically,

Transylvania

represents

the

center

not

the

periphery

of

the

Romanian

nation,

the

Romanian

geographer

N.

Al.

R?dulescu asserted in a memorandum submitted in 1941 to the German

Rasse- und

Siedlungshauptamt

(RuSHA).13

Indeed,

the

interwar

period

saw

the

growth

of

a

large

body

of

Romanian racial

writings

dealing

with Tran

sylvania

and

its

ethnic

communities.14

Harnessing biological

forms of national

belonging

to

back

up

the

scientific evidence

provided

by serology

and

anthropology

was

character

istic of racial

politics

in

interwar

Europe.

In

Romania, however,

allegories

of

race

and

blood?especially

insofar

as

they

represented

an

intensifi

cation

of national

loyalties?were

particularly appealing.

In

interwar Ro

mania,

it

was

nationalism rather

than

scientific commitment that deter

mined the

position

one took on the

question

of racial

anthropology

and

serology.

11.

The institutional and

political

difficulties

experienced

by

the Romanian

state

af

ter

1918

have been the

subject

of

much

analysis.

In

addition

to

classic

works

such

as

Henry

L.

Roberts,

Rumania:

Political

Problems

of

an

Agrarian

State

(New

Haven,

1951);

Kenneth

Jowitt,

ed.,

Social

Change

in

Romania,

1860-1940:

A

Debate

on

Development

in

a

European

Na

tion

(Berkeley,

1978);

and

Daniel

Chirot,

ed.,

The

Origins of

Backwardness

in Eastern

Europe

(Berkeley,

1989)

;

see

Keith

Hitchins,

Rumania,

1866-1947(Oxford, 1994)

;

ohn

R.

Lampe

and Mark

Mazower,

eds.,

Ideologies

and National Identities:

The

Case

of Twentieth-Century

Southeastern

Europe (Budapest,

2004);

and

John

R.

Lampe,

Balkans

into

Southeastern

Europe:

A

Century

of

War

and

Transition

(Basingstoke,

Eng.,

2006).

12.

The

subject generated

an

extensive

scholarship.

Such animated interest notwith

standing,

critical evaluations

are rare.

See

Katherine

Verdery, Transylvanian

Villagers:

Three

Centuries

of

Political,

Economic,

and Ethnic

Change (Berkeley,

1983);

L?szl?

P?ter, ed.,

Histo

rians and the

History of

Transylvania

(Boulder,

Colo.,

1992);

Keith

Hitchins,

A

Nation

Affirmed:

The Romanian

National Movement

in

Transylvania,

1860-1914

(Bucharest, 1999);

and L?szl?

K?rti,

The Remote

Borderland:

Transylvania

in the

Hungarian

Imagination

(New

York,

2001).

13.

N. Al.

R?dulescu,

Anthropologische

Beweise

f?r

das

Alter

und

die

Ureinwohn

erschaft

der Rum?nen

in

Siebenb?rgen

(1941),

Central State

Archive

Prague,

file

Reich

sprotektor

in Boehmen

und

Maehren,

No.

114,

Office

RuSHA,

Box

1,

p.

12.

I

would

like

to thank Michal Sim?nek for drawing my attention to this document. See also N. Al.

R?dulescu,

Antropologie

rasiala

si

antropogeografia

(Bucharest,

1941).

14.

Although

the

main

focus

here is

on

racial research

dealing

with

Transylvania,

it

should

not

be

assumed

that other

regions

(and

ethnic

groups)

were not

subject

to

con

stant

anthropological

attention.

See,

for

example,

I.

Botez,

Contribuai

la studiul

taliei

si

al

indicelui

cephalic

in

Moldova

de nord

si

Bucovina

(Ia?i,

1938),

and

Olga

C.

Necrasov,

Etude

an

thropologique

de laMoldavie

et

de la Bessarabie

septentrionales

(Bucharest,

1941).





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Race,

Blood,

and

Biopolitics

in

Interwar Romania

417

New

Paradigms

in

Racial

Sciences

During

the interwar

period,

racial

terminology

was

fluid

and

undermined

by divergent

interpretations.

Race was both a

physical

entity?one

an

thropologist

described

it

as

the sum-total

of

somatological

characteris

tics ?and

a

cultural

artifact,

the

result

of

specific

historical

conditions.15

As

there

was

no consensus

about

what

constituted

race;

neither did

an

thropologists

agree

on

how

many

races

populated

Europe.

Attempts

to

work

through

this

problem

are

detectable

in

the

effort

to

standardize

racial

cartography.

Here,

three

models

competed

for

prominence.

The

first

was

proposed

by

the

French

naturalist

and

anthropologist

Joseph

Deniker,

who

identified

six

primary

races:

Northern,

Eastern,

Ibero

Insular,

Western

or

Cenevole,

Littoral

or

Atlanto-Mediterranean,

and

Adriatic

or

Dinaric;

along

with

four

subraces:

sub-Northern,

Vistulian,

Northwestern,

and

sub-Adriatic.16

Another model

was

outlined

by

the

American

racial

cartographer

William

Z.

Ripley,

who

insisted that

there

were

only

three

European

races:

Teutonic,

Alpine

(Celtic),

and

Mediter

ranean.17

The

German

racial

anthropologist

Hans F.

K.

G?nther

sug

gested

that

there

were

five

European

races:

Nordic,

Western, Dinaric,

Eastern,

and Baltic.18

All

three authors

considered

the

cephalic

index

to

be

a

reliable

instrument

for

classification,

meaning

that

cranial

capacity

was

what

differentiated

races: some were

dolichocephalic (long-headed),

mainly

Northern

and Ibero-Insular

races;

others

were

brachycephalic

(short-headed),

like

Eastern,

Western,

and Dinaric

races;

and

some races

were

mesocephalic

(medium-headed).19

The

more

a

race

possessed

dolichocephalic

and

brachycephalic

characteristics,

the

more

it claimed

a

superior position

within

the

hierarchy

of

European

races.20

Toward the

end of

the

nineteenth

century,

however,

the

utility

of

cra

nial

research

for racial

purposes

was

viewed with

increasing

suspicion.21

15.

J.

Deniker,

The

Races

of

Man:

An Outline

of Anthropology

and

Ethnography

(London,

1900),

8.

For

a

discussion of

the

relationship

between

the

concept

of

race

and

physical

an

thropology,

see

Paul

Topinard,

De la

notion

de

race en

anthropologie,

Revue d'anthro

pologie

8,

no. 2

(1879):

589-660.

16.

Deniker,

Races

of

Man,

325-35.

17. William

Z.

Ripley,

The

Races

of Europe:

A

Sociological Study

(New

York,

1899).

18.

Hans

F. K.

G?nther,

Rassenkunde

Europas,

2d

ed.

(Munich, 1926).

See also Arnos

Morris-Reich,

Race, Ideas,

and Ideals:

A

Comparison

of Franz Boas

and

Hans F. K.

G?n

ther,

History

of

European

Ideas

32,

no.

3

(September

2006):

313-32.

19.

In

1842,

the Swedish anatomist Anders Retzius

(1796-1860)

first

used the ratio

of width

to

length

to

distinguish

between

dolichocephalic

and

brachycephalic

crania,

thus

establishing

a

craniological comparative study

of

racial

groups.

For

a

discussion of differ

ent

anthropological

traditions of

race,

see

Anders

Retzius,

Coup

d'oeil

sur

V?tat actuel de l'eth

nologie

au

point

de

vue

de la

forme

du

crane osseux

(Geneva,

1860).

20.

For

a

description,

see

Carlos C.

Closson,

The

Hierarchy

of

European Races,

American

Journal

of Sociology

3,

no.

3

(1897):

314-27.

For

how ideas

of

racial classification

were

used

in

different institutional

contexts,

see

Frederik

Barth,

Andre

Gingrich,

Robert

Parkin,

and

Sydel

Silverman,

One

Discipline,

Four

Ways:

British, German, French,

and

American

Anthropology (Chicago,

2005).

21.

See the

critique provided by

G.

M.

Morant,

A

Preliminary

Classification

of

Eu

ropean

Races Based

on

Cranial

Measurements,

Biometrika

20,

nos.

3-4

(1928):

301





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418

Slavic

Review

This

suspicion

was

a

symptom

of

the

growing

dissatisfaction with the

con

cept

of

race,

in

general.22

As

one

form of racial

research

was

slowly

falling

into

disrepute,

new

ones

were

rapidly making progress. Serology

was

one

of

these. The

innovative work

by

physiologists,

immunologists,

and

pathologists,

like

Karl

Landsteiner?who discovered

human

blood

groups

(A,

B,

O)

around

1900?and

Ludwik

Hirszfeld?who

confirmed

that

the

percentage

of

blood

groups

in

a

population

varied

according

to

racial

origin?not

only

helped

the

emergence

of

serology

as

a

discipline

preoccupied

with

deciphering

the

chemical

properties

of

blood

groups

for

the benefit

of

improving

medical

assistance

(such

as

blood

transfu

sions

and

the

discovery

of

new

vaccines),

but

also

brought

the fascination

with blood into

the

mainstream

of

anthropological

research.23

The

idea

of biochemical races, as Hirszfeld called them, provided racial anthro

pologists

with

a

new

method

for

classifying

races

by

more

accurate,

bio

chemical

means

rather

than

by

using

highly

contested

anthropom?trie

characteristics.

Equally

important, serology

also

demonstrated

that

blood

groups

were

inherited

according

to

Mendelian laws

of

heredity,

thus

con

ferring

upon

race

a

distinguishing

attribute

impervious

to

internal

or ex

ternal influences.24

As

the

Italian

haematologist

Leone Lattes

declared

in

his

1923

Uindividualit?

del

sangue:

The

fact of

belonging

to

a

definite

blood

group

is

a

fixed character

of

every

human

being,

and

can

be

altered

neither

by

the

lapse

of

time

nor

by

intercurrent

diseases. 25 Since cranial

measurements had

proved incapable

of

providing

definitive answers to

historical

questions

about racial

identity,

national

ideologues

hoped

that

serology

could offer

the

scientific

certainty

needed

to

legitimize

theories

of

biological

uniqueness.

75. See also

Benoit

Massin,

From

Vichow

to

Fischer:

Physical Anthropology

and

'Modern

Race

Theories'

in

Wilhelmine

Germany,

in

George

W.

Stockingjr.,

ed.,

Volksgeist

as

Method

and Ethic:

Essays

on

Boasian

Ethnography

and

the

German

Anthropological

Tradition

(Madison,

1996),

79-154.

22.

See

Paul

J.

Weindling,

Central

Europe

Confronts Racial

Hygiene:

Friedrich

Hertz,

Hugo

Iltis and

Ignaz

Zollschan

as

Critics

of

Racial

Hygiene,

in

Turda and

Wein

dling,

eds.,

Blood

and

Homeland,

263-80.

23.

For

a

general

discussion

of

serology

and blood

groups,

see

Paul

Steffan,

Handbuch

der

Blutgruppenkunde

(Munich,

1931);

P.

P.

Negulescu,

Geneza

formelor

culturii: Priviri

critice

asupra

factorilor

ei

determinant (Bucharest, 1934);

Fritz

Schiff

and William C.

Boyd,

Blood

Grouping

Technic:

A

Manual

for

Clinicians,

Serologists, Anthropologists,

and Students

of Legal

and

Military

Medicine

(New

York,

1942);

Arthur Ernest

Mourant,

The ABO

Blood

Groups:

Com

prehensive

Tables and

Maps

of

World Distribution

(Oxford, 1958);

Kathleen E.

Boorman

and

Barbara E.

Dodd,

An

Introduction

to

Blood

Group

Serology:

Theory,

Techniques,

Practical

Appli

cations,

2d

ed.

(London, 1961);

William

H.

Schneider,

Chance and Social

Setting

in the

Application

of the

Discovery

of Blood

Groups,

Bulletin

of

the

History ofMedicine

57

(1983):

545-62;

and Pauline

M.

H.

Mazumdar,

Blood and Soil: The

Serology

of

the

Aryan

Racial

State, Bulletin of theHistory ofMedicine 64 (1990): 187-219.

24.

L. Hirschfeld

[Hirszfeld]

and H.

Hirschfeld,

Serological

Differences

between

the

Blood

of Different

Races,

The Lancet

197,

no.

2

(18

October

1919):

675-79.

The Romanian

presentation

of

Hirschfeld

's

research

appeared

in

1922.

See C.

Velluda,

Dr.

L. Hirschfeld

?i

Dna Dr.

Hirschfeld,

Incerc?ri de

aplicaciune

a

medodelor

serologice

?n

problema

raselor,

Clujul

medical3,

no.

12

(1922):

367-68.

25.

Leone

Lattes,

Individuality of

the

Blood

in

Biology

and in Clinical and Forensic Medi

cine

(1st

Italian

ed., 1923; London,

1932),

43.





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Race,

Blood,

and

Biopolitics

in Interwar Romania

419

As

symbols

of

national

belonging,

race

and blood

transcended

sci

ence;

they operated

within

a

new

nationalist

register,

one

unifying

the

physiognomy

of

the

nation and its resurrected

spirituality.26 Subscribing

to

this

axiom,

anthropological

and

serological

research

redefined the

body

of

the

nation

according

to

the scientific

standards

of the

age,

whereby

the

physical

and

spiritual

qualities

of

the

nation

were

placed

un

der close

inspection

by

both

state

agencies

and individuals

entrusted

with

the role

of

protecting

them.

Romanian Racial

Anthropology

Romanian

anthropologists

were

rather late

in

producing

a

racial narrative

for territories that had been the focus of other competing national an

thropologies

before

World

War

I.

It

was

the

French

anthropologist

Eug?ne

Pittard

who

conducted

one

of the

first

racial

investigations

in

Ro

mania.27

In

Recherches

anthropologiques

sur

les

Roumains

de

Transyl

vanie

(1919)

and,

especially,

in

Etude

sur

l'indice

c?phalique

en

Roumanie

(1927)

Pittard

argued

that Romanians from

the Old

Kingdom

were

dolichocephalic,

while those

from

Bukovina

and

Transylvania

were

brachycephalic,

thus

suggesting

that the

Romanian nation

was

composed

of different

racial

types.28

A

similar

argument

was

advanced

by

the

direc

tor

of

the

Institute

of

Anatomy

in

Cluj,

the

physician

and

anatomist

Vic

tor

Papilian.

In a series of articles

published

in the

1920s,

Papilian hoped

to

demonstrate the

existence of

special

cephalometric

characteristics

among

the

Romanians

in

Transylvania.

He concluded

that

the

cranial

characteristics

of

Romanians

from

Transylvania

differed

from

those

of

both Romanians

in

the

Old

Kingdom

and

Hungarians

in

Transylvania.

Compared

with the latter

groups,

the former

were

hyperbrachycephalic

(round

or

broad-headed)

and

mesocephalic : they belonged

to

a

differ

ent

racial

substratum.29

26.

For

the role blood has

played

in

shaping European imagination

since the

Middle

Ages,

see

Uli

Linke,

Blood and Nation: The

European

Aesthetics

of

Race

(Philadelphia,

1999).

27.

See,

for

example, Eug?ne

Pittard,

Anthropologie

de

la

Roumanie: Nouvelles

recherches

sur

le

Skoptzy,

Bulletin de

la

Soci?t? Roumaine des

Sciences

22,

nos.

4-5

(1913):

298-328;

Pittard,

Anthropologie

de

la

Roumanie: Les

Peuple

Sporadiques

de la

Dobrudja

(Bucharest, 1913);

and

Pittard,

Anthropologie

de

la

Roumanie:

Documents

somatologiques

pour

l'?tude des

Tsiganes

(Bucharest,

1915).

28.

Eug?ne

Pittard,

Recherches

anthropologiques

sur

les

Roumains

de

Transyl

vanie,

Revue

anthropologique

29,

nos.

3-4

(1919):

57-76;

and

Pittard,

together

with

Alexandru

Donici,

Etude

sur

l'indice

c?phalique

en

Roumanie

avec

un

essai de

repartition

g?o

graphique

de

ce

caract?re

(Bucharest,

1927).

See also

Eug?ne

Pittard,

Les

Peuples

des

Balkans:

Esquisses

anthropologique

(Paris, 1916); and Pittard, La Roumanie (Paris, 1917). Pittard exer

cised

a

lasting

influence

on

Francise I.

Rainer,

the first director

of the

Institute

of

Anthro

pology

in

Romania.

See Francise

Rainer,

Enqu?tes

anthropologiques

dans

trois

villages

roumains

des

Carpathes

(Bucharest,

1937).

29.

Victor

Papilian,

Studiul indicelui

cranian

vertical

?i

transverse-vertical

pe

crani

ile

de romani

?i

maghiari,

Clujul

medical

1,

no.

9

(1920):

763-77;

Papilian,

Cercet?ri

antropologice

asupra

rom?nilor

ardeleni,

Clujul

medical

2,

no.

11

(1921):

335-39;

and

Pa

pilian,

Nouvelles

recherches

anthropologiques

sur

la t?te des

Roumains de

Transylvanie,





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420

Slavic

Review

Given

the

use

of

the

tandem

dolichocephalic-brachycephalic

in

these

anthropological

writings

dealing

with

ethnic

groups

in

Transylvania?

particularly the alleged racial divide between Romanians from the Old

Kingdom

and

those

from

the

newly

united

provinces,

as

well

as

between

Romanians and

Hungarians?the

conclusions

reached

by

cranial

re

search

contravened the

general

rhetoric

of

Romanian

nationalism,

which

insisted

on

national

unity

and ethnic

homogeneity.

In

fact,

anthropological

theories,

like

those

expressed

by

Pittard

and

Papilian,

encouraged

researchers

to

believe

in

the

existence

of

a

specific

Romanian racial

type,

one

that

they

located

in

Transylvania.

One such

sup

porter

was

the

sociologist

and

anthropologist

Ion

Chelcea,

who

analyzed

the

crania

collection

existing

in

the Museum of

Natural

History

in

Vienna

assembled

by

the Austrian

anthropologist Augustin

Weisbach in the second

half

of

the nineteenth

century.30

Methodologically,

Chelcea

followed the

craniological

principles

outlined

by

the

German

anthropologist

Rudolf

Martin

in

his 1914

Lehrbuch

der

Anthropologie,

especially

individual

cranial

measurements

(length,

breadth,

diameter,

and

so

on).31

Based

on

these

principles,

Chelcea

grouped

Romanian

crania into

six

racial

types:

Roman

Mediterranean

(or

Ibero-Mediterranean),

Nordic,

Kurgan,

Dinaric,

Da

r?an,

and Avar-Turanic.

Practically,

however,

he

followed

the

Romanian

nationalist tradition

and

thus

pointed

to

the

existence of

a

Dar?an

racial

type,

which

was to

be found

especially

among

the

inhabitants

of the

Apuseni

(Western)

Mountains

in

Transylvania.32

Chelcea's

anthropological

reflections

suggest

that

although

he

was

persuaded

by

Pittard's

arguments

about

Romania's racial

diversity?for

he

found

it

perfectly possible

to

differentiate

between Romanian

crania

from

Transylvania

and

the

rest

of

Romania?his

description

of

Dar?an

cranial characteristics

bears

more

than

a

passing

resemblance

to

Pittard's

anthropological

writings.

The

graphic

illustration

of

this

resemblance

not

only

indicates

a

direct

influence,

it

is

also

a

testament to

the

way

in

which

racial

anthropology

turned nationalist

in

Romania

and

became increas

ingly

obsessed with

racial

specificity.

Substantiating

Chelcea's claim

about the

existence

of

a

distinct Ro

manian

racial

type

was

the

idea

of

racial

permanence?an

idea that

served

as

a

medium

for

various

cultural constructions of

the national

past

during

the

interwar

period.

For

instance,

an

oft-voiced

image underpinning

Ro

manian nationalist

tradition

was

the notion

that

the territories

constituting

Greater

Romania had

frequently

been

invaded

(from

the Romans

of

antiquity

to

the

Magyars

of the Middle

Ages

and

the

Jews

of modern

Revue

anthropologique

33,

nos.

9-10

(1923):

337-41.

Although

Bucur

notes

that

Papilian

used notions of

hereditary

determinism in evolution to define the

parameters

of

[his]

own

scientific

discipline,

anthropology,

she does

not

provide

any

evidence

to

support

the

claim. See

Bucur,

Eugenics

and

Modernization

in

Interwar

Romania,

70.

30.

Ion

Chelcea,

Tipuri

de cranii

rom?ne?ti

din Ardeal

(Cercetare

antropol?gica),

Academia Romana: Memoriile

Secfiunii

?tiin?fice

10,

no.

3

(1934/35):

341-68.

31. Rudolf

Martin,

Lehrbuch

der

Anthropologie

in

systematischer

Darstellung

mit

besonderer

Ber?cksichtigung

der

anthropologischen

Methoden

(Jena,

1914).

32.

Chelcea,

Tipuri

de

cranii,

360-62.





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Race,

Blood,

and

Biopolitics

in

Interwar

Romania

421

times).33

This idea

was

neither

new

nor

specifically

Romanian: the

coun

tries of central and southeast

Europe (especially

the

Balkans)

have been

re

peatedly singled

out

as

extremely heterogeneous

ethnic

regions.34

Yet this

troubled

history only

confirmed what Romanian

nationalists

overtly

pro

claimed with

respect

to

the

national

past:

only

a race

superior

in

its

quali

ties could

have

survived

centuries of dislocation and

foreign

domination.

What constituted

that

race was

the

subject

of

heated

debates,

as commen

tators

could

not

agree

whether

it

was

Roman, Dacian-Roman,

Dacian,

or

Dacian-Roman-Slavic.

For

Chelcea,

it

was

the

Dacian

racial

type

that

the

Romanians deemed theirs and that

gave

them

the

right

to

rule

over

terri

tories

where descendants

from that

race

either

now

lived

or

had lived.35

This

racial

expression

of

national

identity

may

be

seen

as

challenging

the scientific credentials claimed by anthropology; yet itmay also be seen

to

be

defining

a

specific

process

of

national

metamorphosis.

Sorin

Antohi

describes this

process

as

ethnic

ontology,

whereby

universal

categories

are

appropriated

and

transformed

by

nationalist

traditions.36

We

may

see

the

emergence

of this

ethnic

ontology

in

the

topical

resemblance be

tween

the

writings

of such

different authors

as

the

historian Vasile

P?rvan,

the

poet

Lucian

Blaga,

and

the

philosopher

Mircea

Vulc?nescu.37

As

these

writers

overtly employed

the

image

of

a

Romanian

national

essence

and

obsessively

sought

to

integrate

it

into

the

discussion

of

national

culture

in

Romania,

it is

possible

to

see

the

way

in

which

the

very

concept

of

race

be

came absorbed into the nationalist rhetoric of inclusion and

exclusion,

epitomizing

the

encounter

between

individuals

representing

different

ethnic

groups

and cultures.

Such

a

transformation

of

the

national

culture

in

Romania

favored the

emergence

of

an

anthropological

tradition

complementary

to

yet

distinct

from that

set

out

by

western

European

scholars,

like

Eug?ne

Pittard,

Augustin

Weisbach,

or

Viktor Lebzelter.38

Iordache

F?c?oaru,

a

racial

33.

For

the classical version

of

this

narrative,

see

Nicolae

Iorga,

Histoire

des

Roumains

et

de

leur

civilisation

(Paris, 1920).

34.

See,

for

example, Jovan

Cvijic,

La

P?ninsule

Balkanique:

G?ographie

humaine

(Paris,

1918);

and

Christian

Promitzer,

Vermessene

K?rper:

'Rassenkundliche'

Grenzziehungen

im

s?d?stlichen

Europa,

in

Karl

Raser,

Dagmar

Gramshammer-Hohl,

and

Robert Pich

ler, eds.,

Europa

und

die Grenzen

im

Kopf

(Klagenfurt,

2004),

357-85.

35. N.

Densu?ianu,

Dada

prehist?rica

(Bucharest, 1913);

A.

Donici,

Crania

Scythica:

Contribution

?

l'?tude

anthropologique

du

crane

scythe

et

essai

relatif

?

l'origine

g?o

graphique

des

scythes,

Academia

Romana:

Memoriile

Secfiunii

?tiin?ifice

10,

no.

3

(1934/1935):

289-329;

and

N.

Lahovary,

Istoria

?i

o

nou? metoda de

determinare

a

raselor,

Arhivapentru

stiinf?

si

reforma

social?

7,

nos.

1-2

(1937):

122-73.

36. Sorin

Antohi,

Romania and the Balkans:

From

Geocultural Bovarism

to

Ethnic

Ontology,

Tr@nsit online

(Europ?ische

Revue)

21

(2002),

available

at

http://www.iwm

.at/index.php?option

=

com_content&:task=view&:id=235&Itemid=411 (last consulted

25

May

2007).

37.

See

Vasile

P?rvan,

Dada: An

Outline

of

the

Early

Civilizations

of

the

Carpatho

Danubian

Countries

(Cambridge, Eng.,

1928);

Lucian

Blaga,

R?volta fondului

nostru

nelatin,

in

Iordan

Chimet,

ed.,

Dreptul

la

memorie

(Cluj,

1993),

3:41-43;

and Mircea

Vulc?nescu,

Dimensiunea

rom?neasc?

a

existenfei (Bucharest,

1991).

38.

See,

for

example,

the

anthropological

framework

suggested

by

Viktor

Lebzelter,

La

R?partition

des

Types

Raciaux

Romano-M?diterran?ens

en

Roumanie,

L'Anthropologie





7/27/2019 20060295.pdf


422

Slavic Review

eugenicist

affiliated with

the

Institute of

Hygiene

and

Social

Hygiene

in

Cluj

and the Institute of Statistics

in

Bucharest,

was

one

author

who

con

tributed significantly to the crystallization of this tradition.39 F?c?oaru em

braced the

study

of

Romanian

racial

history

with unabashed

nationalist

fervor.

A

new

national

politics

required

a

committed racial

anthropology,

and

F?c?oaru

openly

stated:

In

our

national

politics,

anthropology

has

the role of

clarifying

some

of

the

most

important

issues

concerning

our

political

rights

over

the

territory

we

possess

and

over

the

territories

we

do

not

possess. 40

In

proffering

this

assumption,

F?c?oaru made clear refer

ence

to

a new

direction

in

Romanian

national

politics.

Whereas

Papilian

and

Chelcea

expressed

a

restrained

interest

in

connecting

racial anthro

pology

to

biopolitics,

F?c?oaru

openly

engaged

in

constructing

a

Roman

ian racial

ontology, including

all territories where Romanians could be

found.41

That

F?c?oaru

was

devoted

to

developing

a

Romanian

biopolitical

program

becomes evident when

one

turns to

his

racial

studies.42 When

he

declared

in

1937

that

the final

goal

of racial

anthropology

was

to

45,

nos.

1-2

(1935):

65-69.

Despite

his critical attitude

toward

Lebzelter

and

others,

when

it

came

to

explaining

racial

variety

and

composition,

Iordache

F?c?oaru had

to

rely

on

the

racial taxonomies

produced

by

western

European

anthropologists.

He thus

accepted

six

cri

teria for

racial classification:

height,

the

cephalic

index,

the facial

index,

the nasal

index,

and

eye

and

hair

color.

Based

on

these

criteria,

F?c?oaru

then identified four

principal

races:

Alpine,

Dinaric,

Mediterranean,

and

Nordic;

and

five

secondary

races

living

in

Ro

mania:

Dalic,

East-European,

Oriental, West-Asian,

and Indian. The

study

was

first

pub

lished

as

Criteriile

pentru

diagnoz?

rasial?,

Buletin

eugenic

si

biopolitic

6,

nos.

10-11-12

(1935)

:

341-68;

and

later

as

a

brochure

in

the collection edited

by

the Institute of

Hygiene

and Social

Hygiene

in

Cluj.

See

I.

F?c?oaru,

Criteriile

pentru

diagnoz?

rasial?

(Cluj,

1936).

39.

Contrary

to

what

Bucur

assumes,

F?c?oaru did

not

study

in

Berlin and did

not

re

ceive

a

PhD in

sociology.

See

Bucur,

Eugenics

and Modernization in Interwar

Romania,

37.

In

terestingly,

later

in

the book

she

partly

corrects

this

by

saying

that

F?c?oaru

had

com

pleted

his Ph.D.

in

anthropology

at

the

University

of

Munich

in

1929.

Bucur,

Eugenics

and

Modernization

in Interwar

Romania,

112.

In

fact,

F?c?oaru received

his

PhD

(cum

laude)

from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Munich in 1931. He studied pedagogy

with

Aloys

Fisher,

anthropology

with

Theodor

Mollison,

and

racial

hygiene

with Fritz Lenz.

See

Studenten-Kartei:

F?c?oaru

Jordache,

O-Np-SS

31,

Archiv der

Ludwig-Universit?t

M?nchen and the

Archive of

Ministry

of

Health, Bucharest,

F?c?oaru

Iordache,

Personal

File,

No.

10.489.

I

would

like

to

thank

Michael Wedekind

for

drawing

my

attention

to

F?c?oaru

's student

files and

to

Alexandru

Dumitriu

in

Bucharest

for his

help

in

locating

F?c?oaru

's

personal

files.

40.

Iordache

F?c?oaru,

Socialantropologia

ca

ctiinf?

pragmatista,

Buletin

eugenic

si

biopolitic9,

nos.

9-10

(1938):

358.

41. A similar

perspective

was

advocated

by

Petru

R?mneanfu,

Rom?nii dintre

Morava

?i

Timoc

?i

continuitatea

spapului

lor etnic

eu

al rom?nilor din

Banat

?i

din

Tim

ocul

bulgar,

Buletin

eugenic

si

biopolitic

12,

nos.

1-4

(1941):

40-62;

and E.

Petrovici,

Rom?nii dintre Morava

?i

Timoc,

Transilvania

72,

no. 3

(1941):

201-11. For a discussion

of

Romanian

irredentism

in

the

1940s,

see

Rebecca

Ann

Haynes,

'A

New

Greater

Roma

nia?'

Romanian Claims

to

the Serbian

Banat,

Central

Europe

3,

no.

2

(2005):

99-120.

42.

See

especially

the

articles

F?c?oaru

published

in

Germany during

the

1930s,

such

as

I.

F?c?oaru,

Die

'Ganzheitsanthropologie'

und

das

Studium

des Menschen

in

Rum?nien,

Zeitschrift f?r

Rassenkunde

6,

no.

2

(1937):

248-50;

and

F?c?oaru,

Beitrag

zum

Studium

der

wirtschaftlichen

und sozialen

Bew?hrung

der

Rassen,

Zeitschrift f?r

Rassenkunde9,

no.

1

(1939):

26-39.





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Race,

Blood,

and

Biopolitics

in Interwar Romania

423

determine the

'Wight

to

leadership

of

those who

are

superior'?namely

those

belonging

to

races

deemed

superior?he

not

only

insinuated that the

Ro

manians were destined to rule over other ethnic minorities, but that the

racial variation

within

the Romanian national

body justified

Romanians

from certain

areas

ruling

over

those from

other

areas

as

well.43

F?c?oaru

developed

this

synopsis

of ethnic

hierarchy

in

one

of

his

most contro

versial

articles,

which

focuses

on

three

main

ideas: racial

composition,

racial

hierarchy,

and Romania's racial

diversity.

All

three ideas derive from

the

interrelationship

between

race,

blood,

and

spiritual

achievements.44

First,

in order

to

determine the

racial

composition

of

the

main Euro

pean

nations,

F?c?oaru claimed

to

have

synthesized

the foremost racial

theories

of his

time,

and indeed

he

used

no

less than

twenty-five

racial

terms in his

study.45

Next,

he

surveyed

the

biological

value of

European

races,

specifically

the

integral,

physical

and

spiritual,

genotypic

and

phe

notypic

value

of

an

individual

or a

nation,

a race

or

an

ethnic

group.

He

divided them

biologically

into

over-endowed

races,

medium-endowed

races,

and under-endowed races.

According

to

this

racial

profile,

Swedes

were

at

the

top

of

the

chart;

Romanians

were

in

sixth

place,

while

Hungarians

occupied

one

of the last

places.46

Finally,

F?c?oaru

focused

on

the

biological

value

of the Romanian

population

inhabiting

the

histori

cal

regions constituting

Romania:

namely,

Bukovina,

the

Banat,

Transyl

vania,

Cri?ana-Maramure?

(the

western

provinces );

Moldavia,

Bessara

bia,

Transnistria

(the

eastern

provinces );

and

Oltenia,

Muntenia,

and

Dobrudja

(the

southern

provinces ).

Both

rural

and urban

populations

(male

and

female)

were

examined,

and

F?c?oaru

employed

four

norms

to

assess

the

bio-racial level

of

these

samples

of

the

population:

economic

efficiency,

social

mobility,

military

propensity,

and

spiritual

develop

ment.47 As

expected,

the conclusions

reflect

F?c?oaru's nationalist

com

mitment.

Thus,

the western

provinces

(Bukovina,

Transylvania,

and the

Banat)

are

at

the

highest

biological

level;

the

eastern

provinces

(Moldavia,

Bessarabia,

and

Transnistria)

occupy

an

intermediary

place,

while the

43.

I.

F?c?oaru,

Structura

rasial?

a

populafiei

rurale

din Romania

(Bucharest,

1940),

16

(emphasis

in

the

original).

44.

I.

F?c?oaru,

Valoarea

biorasial?

a

nafiunilor

europene

?i

a

provinciilor

rom?ne?ti

(O

prima

?ncercare

de ierarhizare

?tnica),

Buletin

eugenic

si

biopolitic

14,

nos.

9-10

(1943)

:

278-310.

45.

Thus,

for

example, Bulgarians

were

composed

of

the

following

racial

compo

nents:

Mediterranean,

41

percent;

Dinaric-Alpine,

24

percent;

Alpine,

15

percent;

Paleoasiatic-Mongoloid,

12

percent;

and

Nordic,

8

percent.

Germans

were

composed

of

Nordic,

50

percent;

Alpine,

20

percent;

Dinaric,

15

percent;

East-European,

6

percent;

Oriental,

5

percent;

Mediterranean,

2

percent;

Lapoid,

1

percent,

and

Mongoloid,

1

per

cent.

Romanians

were

composed

of

Alpine,

29

percent;

Mediterranean,

19

percent;

Nordic,

14

percent;

East-European,

12

percent;

Dinaric,

11

percent;

Atlantid,

10

percent;

Oriental,

3

percent;

and

Dalic,

2

percent.

Hungarians

were

composed

of

East-European,

35

percent;

Dalic,

20

percent;

Caucasian-Mongoloid,

20

percent;

Alpine,

15

percent,

Nordic,

5

percent,

Mongoloid,

4

percent;

and

Mediterranean,

1

percent.

F?c?oaru,

Val

oarea

biorasial?,

280-81.

The lesser

known Dalic

and

Atlantid

races

are

subdivisions

of

the Nordic

race.

46.

F?c?oaru,

Valoarea

biorasial?,

283.

47.

Ibid.,

292.





7/27/2019 20060295.pdf


424

Slavic

Review

southern

provinces

(Oltenia,

Muntenia,

and

Dobrudja)

are

last.

The

rest

of his

commentary suggests

the

same

stereotypical

and

simplistic

vision:

superior racial qualities are to be found among urban, educated, and

wealthy

social

classes.48

How

different

were

Papilian's,

Chelcea's,

and

F?c?oaru 's

descriptions

of Romanian

racial

characteristics

from

other theories

of

the

nation

pro

posed

during

the

interwar

period?

Undoubtedly,

these

authors

made

ex

cessive

use

of

racial

and

anthropological

terminology,

but

in

fact

they

communicated

in

anthropological

concepts

what

others in

Romania

were

attempting

to

express

in

poetic

or

philosophical

terms.49

Ultimately,

what

emerged

from

these

anthropological

analyses

is

an

unconditional

vener

ation

for

Manichean

and

stereotypical

interpretations

of

the nation.

Be

cause the Romanians were

composed

of different races, there must also

be

a

racial

engine

of

superior

origin

within

the

nation,

and

Papilian,

Chel

cea,

and

F?c?oaru

located

it

among

the

Romanians

of

Transylvania.50

This

narrative

of

national

belonging

clearly

expressed

the

difficulties

that

in

terwar

nationalists

encountered

when

attempting

to

define the

Roman

ian nation. 51

But

this

ambiguity

about

what

constituted

the

nation

helped

these

nationalists

to

disseminate

racial

ideas,

for

as

Ann Stoler

has

noted,

racisms

gain

their

strategic

force,

not

from the

fixity

of their

es

sentialism,

but

from

the

internal

malleability

assigned

to

the

changing

feature

of

racial

essence. 52

Romanian

Racial

Serology

One

issue,

in

particular,

troubled

those involved

in this

type

of

anthropo

logical

research:

physical

similarity

versus

racial differences.

Serology

was

called

on

to

solve

this

conundrum.

Based

on

the

special

properties

of

blood

groups,

serologists

attempted

to

identify

biological

relationships

between

individuals

of

the

same

and different

ethnic

groups,

in

order

to

demonstrate

the

preservation

of

biological

characteristics

whose

physical

distinctiveness might

have

been

obliterated

over

time but

whose

heredi

tary

uniqueness

never

disappeared.

The

Director

of

the National

Institute

of Statistics

in

Bucharest,

the

statistician

and

demographer

Sabin

Manuil?,

and

Gheorghe

Popovici,

a

professor

at

the

Faculty

of

Medicine

in

Cluj,

were

among

the

first

Ro

manian

scientists

to

publicize

the

new

theories

of

serology.53

In

his

1924

48.

Ibid.,

306-7.

49.

For

a

literary

and

philosophical

idea

of

race,

see

Lucian

Blaga,

Despre

rasa

ca

stil,

G?ndirea

14,

no.

2

(1935):

69-73.

See

also

Marin

Simionescu-R?mniceanu,

Contribuai

la

o

id?ologie pol?tica

specific

rom?neasc?

(Bucharest,

1939).

50.

See

Iordache

F?c?oaru,

Amestecul

rasial

?i

etnic

?n

Romania,

Buletin

eugenic

si

biopolitic9,

nos.

9-10

(1938):

276-87.

51. See

Constantin

R?dulescu-Motru,

Tipul

rasial

rom?nese

dup?

indicele

cephalic,

in

C.

R?dulescu-Motru,

Psihologiapoporului

rom?n

(Bucharest,

1999),

150-66.

52.

Stoler,

Carnal

Knowledge

and

Imperial

Power,

144.

53.

S. Manuil?

and

G.

Popoviciu,

Recherches

sur

les

races

roumaine

et

hongroise

en

Roumanie

par risoh?magglutination,

Comptes

rendus

des

s?ances

de la

Soci?t?

de

Biologie

90,





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Race, Blood,

and

Biopolitics

in Interwar

Romania

425

article,

Manuil?

saluted the

introduction

of

a

new

anthropological

tool:

isohemagglutination,

namely

that

the

red

blood

corpuscles

of

one

indi

vidual mix with the blood serum of another individual from the same spe

cies

but

not

from

a

different

one.54 He also

offered

a

distilled

version

of

Hirszfeld's

theory

on

the

biological

index

of race and

its

permanence

according

to

the

laws

of

heredity.

Subsequently,

Manuil?

discovered that

the

biological

index

of

the

Romanians

was

2.20;

by

comparison,

that

of

the

Serbs

and

Bulgarians

was

2.29;

and of the

Greeks

2.25.

Manuil?

unified

these

indexes

under

a

generic

name? Southeast

European

in

dex ?arguing

that

his

research

proved

that,

although

these

nations

might

not

have

originated

from

the

same

race,

they

must

have

been

closely

connected. Not

only

were

Romanians,

Serbs,

Bulgarians,

and

Greeks related,

they

were also

unique

in their racial constitution: There

exists

no

other

people

whose

index

so

closely

approximates

that of

the

southeast

European

peoples,

Manuil?

concluded.55

Manuil?'s

article

gave

rise

to

a

considerable

discussion

about

serology

in

Romania.

Popovici

was

the

first

to

respond.56

Methodologically,

Popovici

was

also

a

follower

of

the

serological

methods

proposed

by

Emil

von

D?ngern

and

Hirszfeld.

Contrary

to

Manuil?,

however,

Popovici

aimed

at

more

than

just

outlining

a

theoretical

framework;

he

addition

ally

engaged

with

two

contentious

topics:

the

viability

of

race

as a

sci

entific

concept

and

the

racial

origins

of

the

ethnic

groups

in

Greater

Ro

mania,

especially

in

Transylvania.

From

the

outset,

Popovici

rejected

the

methodological

importance

of

race

in

defining

national

identity.

In

the

Balkans,

he

noted,

race

cannot

explain

national

differences

and

should

be

used

for

this

purpose

only

as a

last

resort. 57

With the

advent

of

serol

ogy,

anthropology

was

endowed

with

a

new

method,

described

as

more

objective,

more

precise,

and

more

subtle ;

a

method

that

could

identify

those

profound

and less

alterable

differences

in

blood

structure

that

were

previously

undetected

by

research. 58

Serology

therefore

served

sev

eral

functions. On

the

one

hand,

it

demonstrated that

within

the

same

race

there

were

different

serological races, thereby unequivocally

rejecting

the

idea

of

racial

homogeneity.

Yet

on

the

other

hand,

serology

confirmed

that

blood

characteristics

were

transmitted

according

to

Mendelian

laws

of

heredity,

unconditioned

by

natural

or

social envi

ronment.

Corroborating

the

results

obtained

by

Hirszfeld

in

Thessaloniki

with

those

of

Oskar

Weszeczky

and

Frigyes

Verz?r in

Hungary,

and

Manuil?

in

Romania,

Popovici

added

his

own

contribution

to

the

dis

no.

1

(1924)

:

542-43;

and S.

Manuil?,

Recherches

s?ro-anthropologiques

sur

les

races

en

Roumanie

par

la

m?thode de

l'isoh?magglutination,

Comptes

rendus des

s?ances

de la

Soci?t?

deBiologie90, no. 2 (1924): 1071-73.

54. Sabin

Manuil?,

Cercet?ri

biologice

cu

privire

la

rasse,

prin

aplicarea

unei

metode

noua,

Convorbiri

literare

56

(1924):

694-98.

55.

Ibid.,

696.

56.

Gheorghe

Popovici,

Diferente

?i

asem?n?ri

?n

structura

biol?gica

de rasa

a

popoarelor

Rom?niei,

Cultural

(1924):

224-34.

57.

Ibid.,

224.

58.

Ibid.,

224-25.





7/27/2019 20060295.pdf


426

Slavic Review

cussion

on

the

biological

index

of the Romanians. 59

He thus

analyzed

12,000

individuals

from

different

social

backgrounds

(such

as

soldiers,

pa

tients in hospitals, schoolchildren, and villagers),

as

well

as

different

eth

nic

origins,

including

Romanians,

Hungarians,

Germans,

Roma,

Jews,

and

Russians.

Based

on

this

research,

Popovici

reached

a

conclusion

that

dif

fered

from

Manuil?'s:

the

biological

index

of the

Romanians

was

2.01,

situating

them

between

peoples

of the Balkans

and those

of

Russia ;

that

of

the

Hungarians

from

Transylvania,

for

instance,

was

1.7,

close

to

that

of

their

brothers

from the

Hungarian

plain. 60

With

respect

to

dissimilar

racial

composition

within

the

same

envi

ronment,

both

Manuil?

and

Popovici

noted

that

the racial

index varied

according

to

the

geographical

distribution

of

ethnic

groups.

Popovici,

however,

placed

this

assumption

at the center of his argument. The Ro

manians

from

the

mountainous

regions

of

Transylvania,

he

claimed,

dif

fered

in

their blood

properties

from

Romanians

in

Walachia

or

Dobrudja:

as

a

general

rule,

the

more

exposed

a

region

was

to

the

migrations

of

the

Middle

Ages,

the lower

it

was

in

the

European

group

A

(and

the

higher

in

group

B).

This

geographical

variation

within

one

specific

ethnic

group

was

further

tested

by

concentrating

on

ethnically

mixed

subregions

in

Transylvania,

where

Romanian,

Hungarian,

and

German

villages

were

situated

next

to

each

other.

According

to

Popovici,

the

serological

characteristics

of

each

group

reflected

their

ethnic

affiliation,

which

was

not

influenced

by

the

geographical

and historical

proximity

of

other eth

nic

groups.

Serology

could

ultimately

indicate?Popovici

reaffirmed?

whether

or

not

common

racial

elements found

in

different ethnic

groups

could

be

explained

by

their

similar

origin.

Based

on

this

assumption,

Popovici

concluded

that

the

plausible

explanation

for

why

Romanians

and

Hungarians

living

in the

same

areas

in

Transylvania

had

approxi

mately

similar

biological

indexes

was

that

they

might

have

had

the

same

racial

ancestor:

namely,

an

autochthonous

race

whose

existence

pre

dated

the

arrival

of

the

Hungarians

in

the

Carpathian

basin.61

Contrary

to

Popovici's

efforts

to

distance

himself

from

any

nationalist

interpretation

of

serological

data,

his

argumentation

did

in

fact

favor

Ro

manian

paradigms

of

historical

continuity

in

Transylvania;

as

such,

it

had

a

particular

resonance

for

nationalists

attracted

to

biological

theories

of

belonging.

To

discourage

any

nationalist

appropriation

and increase

the

credibility

of

his

research

results,

Popovici

made

systematic

use

of tech

niques

like

comparative

analysis

in

the

application

of

serological

theories.

In

another

article,

he

managed

to

maintain

a

scientific

fa?ade

for

his

sero

logical

arguments,

without

reproducing

the

theories

of racial

origins

emerging

within

nationalist

circles.

Agreeing

with

Manuil?'s

conclusions

(although without embracing his speculation about the Southeast Euro

59.

Oskar

Weszeczky,

Untersuchungen

?ber

die

gruppenweise

H?magglutination

beim

Menschen,

Biochemische

Zeitschrift

107

(1920):

159-71;

and

F.

Verz?r

and O. Wes

zeczky,

Rassenbiologische

Untersuchungen

mittels

Isoh?magglutininen,

Biochemische

Zeitschrift

16

(1921/1922):

33-39.

60.

Popovici,

Diferente

?i

aseman?ri,

226.

61.

Ibid.,

227-34.





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Race,

Blood,

and

Biopolitics

in Interwar Romania

427

pean

index ),

Popovici's

final

observation

was

twofold:

first,

he

argued

that

the

Romanians

from

Transylvania

present

blood

groups

in

the

same

proportions as other peoples from the Balkans ; second, he postulated

that

the

serological

structure

of the Romanians from the Old

Kingdom,

Bessarabia,

and

Bukovina

positioned

them

between the

European

and the

Asian-African

type.62

The

impact

of

Manuil?'s

and

Popovici's serological

research

on

bio

political

theories in

Romania

was

immediate,

for

both

were

connected

to

Iuliu

Moldovan,

the director of the Institute of

Hygiene

and

Social

Hygiene

in

Cluj,

who,

in

turn,

was

the

mentor

of the

main

Romanian

eugenicists

and

racial

anthropologists

in

the

interwar

period,

including

F?c?oaru

and Petru

R?mneanfu.63

Racial

narratives

and

typologies

of eth

nic

groups

in Romania were

negotiated

and

popularized

within this circle

of friends

and

colleagues.64

The

biologization

of

national

belonging

en

visaged

by

eugenicists

made it

possible

for racial

anthropology

to

intersect

with

serology.

These

were

the

disciplines

that

endeavored

to

transform

the

Romanian

national

body

in

line

with

a

new

biopolitical

program.

A

Rejuvenated

National

Body

A

dominant

principle underlay

Romanian

biopolitics

during

the interwar

period:

the ideal

of Greater Romania. The

nationalist

myth

of

a

territory

occupied by

all

Romanians

(and

only

by

them)

involved

the

fusion

of

various

overlapping

Romantic notions?the

unity

between

language

and

territory;

the

glorification

of

the Dacian

empire;

the

sanctity

of the

nation.

Nevertheless,

as a

formula for

national

cohesion,

the

content

of

an

62.

Georges

Popoviciu,

Recherches

s?rologiques

sur

les

races

en

Roumanie,

Revue

anthropologique

35,

nos.

4-5-6

(1925):

152-64.

63.

In

the

first

volume of

Buletin

eugenic

si

biopolitic

edited

by

Moldovan

and

published

in

1927,

the

legal physician

and lecturer

at

the Law

Academy

in

Oradea,

Mihai

Kernbach,

published

a

short

commentary

on

blood

groups

in

which

he

evaluated the

importance

of

serology for anthropology and surveyed new vistas of research opened up

by

the discovery

of

the

agglutinating

properties

of blood.

See

M.

Kernbach,

Grupuri

sangvine,

Buletin

eu

genic

si

biopolitic

1,

no.

3

(1927):

102-6.

Other

researchers

interested

in

serological

re

search

were

Francise

Rainer,

Maria Horia

Dumitrescu,

Alexandru

Manuil?,

and

Maria

Ve?temeanu.

See Francise

Rainer,

Exista

cordage

?ntre

grupele

sanguine

umane

?i

cele

lalte

caract?re

antropologice?

in

Omagiu

lui

Constantin

Kirifescu

(Bucharest,

1937),

696-701;

Mar?a

Horia

Dumitrescu,

Cercet?ri

asupra

grupelor

sanguine

?n

Romania,

Romania

med?cala

12,

no.

10

(1934):

141-42, 144;

and

Alexandru

Manuil? and

Maria

Ve?temeanu,

Constat?ri

cu

privire

la

aplicarea

metodei

sero-antropologice

pe

teren,

Buletin

eugenic

si

biopolitic

14,

nos.

3-4

(1943):

121-25.

64.

A

good

example

is

the

collaboration between

F?c?oaru and

R?mneanfu

occa

sioned

by

the Seventeenth

International

Congress

of

Anthropology

held

in

1937

in

Bucharest. See P.

R?mneantu

and

I.

F?c?oaru,

The

Blood

Groups

and

the

Pigmentation

of

the

Iris

in

the

Population

from

Transylvania ;

P.

R?mneantu

and I.

F?c?oaru,

The

Blood

Groups

and the Facial

Index

in

the

Population

from

Transylvania ;

I.

F?c?oaru and

P.

R?mneantu,

Das

Verh?ltnis,

zwischen Rassen

und

Blutgruppen

bei

der

Siebenb?rgis

chen

Bev?lkerung ;

I.

F?c?oaru

and

P.

R?mneanfu,

Der

L?ngen-Breitenindex

und die

Blutgruppen

bei der

Siebenb?rgischen

Bev?lkerung,

all in XVIIe

Congr?s

International

d'Anthropologie

et

d'Arch?ologie

Pr?historique

(Bucharest,

1939),

323-25,

333-37,

337-39,

and

339-42.





7/27/2019 20060295.pdf


428

Slavic

Review

idealized

Greater

Romania

was

continually

changing.

Indeed,

although

it

was

always

a

totalizing

nationalist

ideology, during

the

interwar

period

Ro

manian

nationalists

could?and did?understand

it

as an

expression

of

the

doctrine

of

the

homogeneous

ethnic

state,

one

predicated

upon

racial

affiliation.65

From

this

interpretation

follows

the

ideological

importance

of

the

key

arguments

advanced

by

contemporary

anthropological

and

serological

research:

the

dispute

over

the

racial

origins

of

ethnic minori

ties

and the

struggle

over

the racial

core

of

the Romanian nation

(claimed

to

be located

in

the mountains

of

Transylvania).

R?mneanfu,

another

eugenicist

and

racial

anthropologist

from Tran

sylvania,

was

instrumental

in the

development

and

application

of

serolog

ical research

to

the

study

of ethnic minorities

in

interwar Romania.

In

1935, R?mneanju (together with Petru David) published one of the most

articulated combinations

of

anthropological

theories of

race

with

nation

alism

and

serology.66

This

article

can

be divided

into

two

parts:

the

first

deals

with

historical

narratives,

including

arguments

about the

Romanian

continuity

in

Transylvania

and

various

theories

concerning

the

origins

of

the

Szeklers;

the

second

comprises

a

synthesis

of

serological

theories,

fol

lowed

by

their

application

to

ethnic

groups

in

Transylvania.

For

R?mneantu,

Romanian

continuity

in

Transylvania

necessitated

no

additional confirmation.

Accordingly,

he moved

immediately

to

a

discus

sion

of the

origins

of

the

Szeklers,

engaging

with

two

theories: the first

as

sumed that the Szeklers were of Hun

origin;

the second

suggested

that

they

were

instead

Hungarian

colonists.

R?mneantu

favored neither the

ory.

Instead,

he maintained

that

only

the

process

of

isohemagglutination

could solve

the

historical

conundrum

regarding

ethnic

groups

in

Transyl

vania,

for

blood is the

real,

perhaps

the

unique,

source

that

has

remained

untouched

by

the

vicissitudes

of

time

and

that will

elucidate the Szeklers'

true

ethnic

origin. 67

Two

serological

theories

backed

up

R?mneantu's

assertion: Hirsz

feld's

biochemical

race

index

and

Siegmund

Wellisch's

blood

specific

gene

index.

Applied

to

the ethnic

groups

of

southeast

Transylvania,

these

serological

theories

were

meant to

establish

the Romanians'

racial-biological

index

and then

identify villages

that

were,

according

to

R?mneanfu,

just summarily

Szeklerized

(namely

those

villages

where

the Romanians'

racial-biological

index

was

easily

detectable).

Yet serol

ogy

was

also

employed

to

locate

the

biological

index

specific

to

the

65. That

this

was

not

something

exclusively

confined

to

Romania,

but

a common

fea

ture

of racial nationalism

in the Balkans

is

eloquently

demonstrated

by

the

case

of Yu

goslavia.

See

Rory

Yeomans,

Of

'Yugoslav

Barbarians'

and Croatian

Gentlemen Scholars:

Nationalist

Ideology

and

Racial

Anthropology

in

Interwar

Yugoslavia,

in Turda and Wein

dling,

eds., Blood and Homeland, 83-122.

66. Petru

R?mneantu

(in

collaboration

with

Petru

David),

Cercet?ri

asupra

originii

etnice

a

popula?iei

din

sud-estul

Transilvaniei

pe

baza

compozi?iei

serologice

a

s?ngelui,

Buletin

eugenic

si

biopolitic

6,

no.

1

(1935):

36-75.

See also

Pierre

R?mneantu,

Origine

eth

nique

des Sz?klers

de

Transylvanie,

Revue

de

Transylvanie

2,

no.

1

(1935/1936):

45-59;

and

I.

F?c?oaru,

Compozitia

rasial?

la

romani,

s?cui

?i

unguri,

Buletin

eugenic

si

biopolitic

1,

nos.

4-5

(1937):

124-42.

67.

R?mneantu,

Cercet?ri

asupra

originii

etnice

a

populatiei,

40.





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Race, Blood,

and

Biopolitics

in

Interwar

Romania 429

Szeklers.

With

respect

to

the

first

assumption,

R?mneanfu

confirmed

Manuil?'s

research

results

and considered

that the

racial

index

of

Ro

manians

from

southeast

of

Transylvania

varied

between

2.60

and

1.76,

with the

average

situated

between

2.20

and

2.00,

similar

to

that

of

Romanians

from

other

parts

of

Transylvania

and

the

Old

Kingdom

of

Romania,

though

lower

than

that

of Romanians

from

the

Apuseni

Mountains,

who

were

considered

the

least

racially

contaminated.

When

conducting

the

same

serological

research

in

Szekler

villages

(in

the

counties

of

Ciuc/Csik,

Odorhei/Udvarhely,

and

Trei-Scaune/

H?romsz?k),

however,

R?mneantu

discovered

that,

in

general,

the

racial

index

of the

Szeklers

in

that

region

varied between 3.07

and

1.56.

He

hastened

to

explain

that such

variance

was

caused

by

the

mixed ethnic

origin of the groups studied, for?R?mneantu continued?when con

centrating

on

villages

inhabited

exclusively by

Szeklers,

the

resulting

racial

index

was

2.11,

near

the

average

of the

racial index of the Roma

nians:

This

mathematical

and

biological

measurement,

the result

of

an

unprecedented

number

of

analyses,

proves

beyond

a

doubt that the

eth

nic

origin

of

those named

Szeklers

is

identical with

that

of

the Romani

ans. 68

To

prove

that

his

serological

research

was

indisputably

confirmed

by

facts

and

comparative

analyses,

R?mneantu

briefly

reflected

upon

the

racial

indexes

of

the

Saxons

and

the Roma

population:

he

found

no

dif

ference between

the racial index of the

first

group

and their

counter

parts

from

Germany; similarly,

the racial index of the latter

group

confirmed their

origins

in

India.

To discuss

the ethnic

origins

of

Romanians,

Hungarians,

and Szek

lers

in

Transylvania

based

only

on

the race

index

was

mistakenly

to

treat

a

topic

of

paramount

importance

with

a

slightly

outdated method

ology,

R?mneanfu

argued.

As

a

result,

he decided? in

order

to

be

com

pletely

well

informed ?to

augment

his

serological

results

by

imple

menting

Wellisch's

blood

specific

gene

index,

namely

by

considering

the

gene

distribution

(p,

q,

and

r)

corresponding

to

the three bio

chemical races

(A,

B,

and

O).

This

new

serological configuration

was

then

graphically

represented

using

Oswald

Streng's

race-triangle,

considered

the

latest

synthesis

in

racial

serology

(see

figure

1).

More

over,

R?mneantu

argued

that

a

similar

process

of

Szeklerization

oc

curred

to

the Saxons

of

that

region,

whose

race index

suggested

their

authentic ethnic

origin.

Because

we

could

not

establish

a

biological

in

dex

specific

to

the

Szeklers,

as

it

does

not

exist,

R?mneanfu

concluded

that this ethnic

group

has the

same

ethnic-anthropological

origin

as

the

Romanians. 69

A

similar

interpretation

was

proposed

by

Popovici,

who returned

to

these topics in a series of articles published in the late 1930s and revised

some

of

the

serological

assumptions

he

had

made in

the

1920s

(for

ex

ample,

he

deemed Hirszfeld's

biological

index

of

race

redundant

in

the

wake

of

the

new

serological

research)

and

accepted

that

the blood

68.

Ibid.,

56.

69.

Ibid.,

64-65.





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430

Slavic Review

?foa6e/yr

t/J/faer/&?/&

?/fO'?//JnO?/X

\

A/myres

\

#<ssrc;

\ZSas?ra?sef

Carao*

a

Figure

1.

Blood

Types by

Racial

Groups.

From Pierre

R?mneantu,

Origine

ethnique

des Sz?klers de

Transylvanie,''

Revue de

Transylvanie

2,

no.

1

(1935/

1936):

56.

properties

of the

race

(isohemagglutination)

confirmed that the Szeklers

were

almost identical with the Romanians

living

in

the

same

place. 70

The

Hungarians

from

Transylvania

also

possessed

a

high proportion

of

the European value p (or group A), an occurrence that was explained

by

the fact that the

Hungarians

mixed with

Romanians and

Germans,

whose

high

level of

p

was

also

documented.71

Unsurprisingly, Popovici's

conclusions resembled F?c?oaru's

and

R?mneanfu's

racial nationalism: the

Hungarians

in

Transylvania

were

biologically

closer

to

Romanians than

to

Hungarians

in

Hungary.

Yet

Popovici's

nationalist ethos carried

him

even

further.

As

a

gloss

on

the

elu

sive theme of racial

purity

and illustrative of the nationalist obsession with

racial

essence,

Popovici

argued:

The Romanians of the mountainous

center

of

Transylvania

as

well

as

the

Hungarians

and the Szeklers of this

region

possess

a

European

racial

purity

that one

only

finds in a few

70.

G.

Popoviciu

and I.

Birau,

Nouvelles contributions

a

l'?tude des

isoh?magglu

tinines

en

Roumanie,

Revue

anthropologique46,

nos.

4-6

(1936):

181-83;

and G.

Popovi

ciu,

Comparaison

entre

les

groupes

sanguins

des Roumains

et

ceux

des

autres

peuples

de

la

Roumanie,

Revue

anthropologique

46,

nos.

4-6

(1936):

184-89.

71.

Popoviciu

and

Birau,

Nouvelles

contributions,

182-83.





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Race,

Blood,

and

Biopolitics

in

Interwar Romania

431

mountainous

regions

of

Europe.

The

proportions

of

p

and

q appear

here

at

the

same

levels

as

in

the

Alpine

and

Nordic races. 72

Popovici's

nationalist

interpretation

of

serology

was

fully

revealed

in

an

article

he

published

in 1938

in Revue de

Transylvanie?^

He commenced

his

analysis

thus:

Lately

the

problem

of

the

racial

origin

of

nations is

of

ten

posed.

Romania's adversaries

attempt

to

prove

that

the

Romanians

possess

their

frontiers

unjustly

and

that the

new

provinces

are

inhabited

by

populations

that

are

either

non-Romanian

or

only recently

Roman

ized. This

erroneous

argument

is

especially

made

about

Transylvania. 74

Next

Popovici

returned

to

one

of

his

early

serological

convictions

and dis

carded the

importance

of

race

in

defining

nationality, explaining

that

the

original

Hungarian

race became

virtually

extinct

during

the

wars

of

the

Middle Ages. Indeed, a few enclaves of the pure Hungarian race are

spread

across

the

Hungarian

plain,

but

contemporary

Hungarians

(living

in

Budapest

as

well

as

in

Transylvania)

were

simply

assimilated

Romani

ans,

Slavs,

and Germans.

Nationality, religion,

and

the

language

of

a

par

ticular

group

could

not

explain

its racial

origin.75

Not

surprisingly

then,

according

to

Popovici,

The

Hungarians

of Romania

are?as

a

rule?

Magyarized

Romanians. 76

In

many

ways,

this

nationalization of

serology

reflected

the

political

at

mosphere

of

emerging

authoritarian

regimes

in

the late 1930s.

Just

as

the

debates

over

national

symbolism

and

territorial

disintegration

occasioned

an

exchange

of views on the essential traits of the Romanian national

character,

discussions about

a new

racial

biopolitics prompted

reflections

on

Romania's

national future.

Similar

to

fascist

Italy

and

Nazi

Germany,

various

forms

of radical

politics

that

emerged

in

Romania

during

the

early

1940s endorsed the

idea

of

a

totalitarian

state,

seen

to

be

the

epitome

of

Romanian

ethnic

supremacy.

And

like racial

ideologues

elsewhere,

Ro

manian

eugenicists

and racial

anthropologists adopted

and

championed

principles

of ethnic

reengineering

and

social

segregation.77

72.

Popoviciu,

Comparaison

entre

les

groupes

sanguins,

181-89.

See also

Georges

Popoviciu,

Les

races

sanguines

en

Roumanie,

in

XVIIe

Congr?s

International

d'Anthropolo

gie

et

d'Arch?ologie

Pr?historique,

309-16.

73.

George

Popovici,

Le

probl?me

des

populations

de la

Roumanie

vu a

la

lumi?re

des recherches

sur

les

races

d'apr?s

le

sang,

Revue

de

Transylvanie

4,

nos.

1-2

(1938):

14-27.

74.

Ibid.,

14.

75.

Ibid.,

15.

R?mneanfu

proposed

a

similar

argument:

The

application

of

the

sero

logical

investigations

in

the

populations

is

one

of the

most

important

achievements

for

an

thropology.

In

this

way,

based

on

the variations

among

fixed limits

of the classical

blood

groups,

we are

able

to

determine

to

which nation

belongs

every

population

nucleus.

We

are

convinced

that the distribution of the blood

groups

gives

better indication about

the

extension of

an

'ethnie,'

than the

language,

the

culture,

and the

customs.

In

Peter

Ramneantzu,

The Classical Blood

Groups

and the

M,

N and

M,

N

Properties

in

the

Na

tions

from

Transylvania,

in

XVIIe

Congr?s

International

d'Anthropologie

et

d'Arch?ologie

Pr?his

torique,

325.

76.

Popovici,

Le

probl?me

des

populations

de la

Roumanie,

24.

See also

R?dulescu,

Anthropologische

Beweise,

12.

77.

According

to

Maria

Bucur,

The

relationship

between

Romanian

eugenics

and the

policies

of the

Antonescu

regime,

especially

with

regard

to

its

treatment

of

'undesirable'





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432

Slavic Review

However,

this

conspicuous

imitation,

which

proved

perfectly

suited

to

integrating

the

biopolitical

modernism

of

Romanian

fascism within the

European

context,

should

not

obfuscate

the

specific

cultural

environ

ment and

political

circumstances

permeating

the narratives of national

identity produced during

this

period.

Not

only

was

Romania

a

country

with

a

significant

number

of

ethnic minorities

(28

to

30

percent

of

the

population),

but its

own

dream of

territorial

expansion

was

short-lived.

(In

1940,

Romania lost northern

Bukovina

and

Bessarabia,

northern

Transylvania,

and

southern

Dobrudja

to

the

Soviet

Union,

Hungary,

and

Bulgaria, respectively). Unsurprisingly,

then,

Romania's

entry

into

the

war

in

the

subsequent

year

was

portrayed

as a

holy

war

against

external

foes

and hostile

historical

circumstances:

war

provided

a

new

context

for

the

palingenetic myth

of

national

renewal;

through

combat and

sacrifice,

Romania

could

regain

not

only

its

territories

but,

equally important,

its

mystical

aura

of

a

superior

nation. 78

Within this

new

political

context,

racial

anthropology

and

serology

professed

the

fervent intention

to

redesign

the

history

and racial

origin

of

ethnic minorities

living

in

Romania.79 Such

processes

of

racial

appropriation

became

popular

in

1940s

Europe,

most

tellingly

in

Nazi

research

in

central

and southeast

Europe.80

During

the

war

in

Romania,

this

transgression

of ethnic

boundaries

was

a

pressing

concern

due

to

the

problem

of

defining

the

body

of the nation

in

a

period

in

which

po

litical revisionism reached

its

pinnacle?not only through

scientific

minorities?the

Jews

and Roma?remains

unclear.

Bucur,

Eugenics

and

Modernization

in

Interwar

Romania,

224.

Scholars

dealing

with

the Holocaust

in

Romania,

like Radu

Ioanid,

Jean

Ancel,

Lya Benjamin,

and

Dennis

Dele

tant,

have

documented clear

connections,

however.

See

Radu

Ioanid,

The

Holocaust

in

Romania:

The

Destruction

of

Jews

and

Gypsies

under

the Antonescu

Regime,

1940-1944

(Chicago,

2000);

Jean

Ancel,

The

German-Romanian

Relationship

and the Final

Solution,

Holocaust and Genocide

Studies

19,

no.

2

(2005):

252-75;

Lya

Benjamin,

Bazele doctrinare ale

antisemitismului

antonescian,

in

Viorel

Achim

and

Constantin

Iordachi,

eds.,

Romania

si

Transnistria: Problema

Holocaustului: Per

spective

istorice

si

comparative

(Bucharest,

2004),

237-51;

Lya Benjamin,

ed.,

Evreii

din Roma

nia intre 1940-1944, vol. 1, Legislaba antievreiasc? (Bucharest, 1993) ;and Dennis Deletant,

Hitler's

Forgotten

Ally:

Ion Antonescu

and His

Regime,

Romania 1940-1944

(Basingstoke, Eng.,

2006).

Moreover,

archival

documents

indicate the

importance

bestowed

on

R?mneantu

's

work

on

the

racial

origins

of

the

Csangos

by

the

religious

leaders

of the

Csango

communi

ties

in

Moldova

in their

attempts

to

assure

General

Antonescu of their

loyalty

to

the

Romanian

state.

See,

for

example,

the informative

note

sent

on

1

April

1943

to

Serviciul

Special

de

Informal (SSI),

In

jurul problemei

originei

entice

a

ceang?ilor

?i

a

rom?nilor

catolici din

Moldova,

Arhivele Statului

Bucure?ti,

Pre?edinfia

Consiliului

de

Mini?tri,

f.

63/1942

(I

am

grateful

to

Chris Davis

for

locating

this

document).

The

note

was

occa

sioned

by

the

publication

of

Petru

M. P?l's

article,

Glasul

s?ngelui,

in

Originea,

a

strong

en

dorsement

of

Ramneanju's

racial theories

about

the

Csangos.

78. Nicolae

Ro?u,

Dial?ctica

naponalismului

(Bucharest, 1936),

18.

79.

See

Arens

Meinholf,

Die

Moldauer

Ungarn

(Tschangos)

im Rahmen der

rum?nisch-ungarisch-deutschen

Beziehungen

zwischen 1940

and 1944:

Eine

vornational

strukturierte

ethnische

Gruppe

im

Spannungsfeld

totalit?rer

Volkstumspolitik,

in

Mari

ana

Hausleitner

and Harald

Roth, eds.,

Der

Einfluss

von

Faschismus

und

Nationalsozialismus

auf

Minderheiten

in Ostmittel-

und

S?dosteuropa

(Munich,

2006),

265-315.

80. See

Michael

Burleigh, Germany

Turns

Eastwards:

A

Study

of Ostforschung

in

the

Third

Reich

(Cambridge, Eng.,

1988).





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Race, Blood,

and

Biopolitics

in Interwar

Romania

433

practices

and

literary

exercises,

but

in the

very

substance

of

national

politics.81

In

a

report

published

after

his research

in Bessarabia

in

1942,

F?c?oaru established

this

point

in

reference

to

the

racial

structure

of

the Romanians from this

region:

Racial researches about our co

nationals

living

outside

the

borders of

the

country

have both scientific

and

biopolitical

importance. 82

Exemplifying

this wartime

evolution

of

serology,

R?mneanfu

indi

cated how

the three

main

blood

groups?A,

B,

and

O?were distributed

within

each nation.83

In

a

series of

articles

published

in

the

1940s,

R?m

neanfu

discussed

the sero-races

of

Transylvania

following

the

tradi

tional,

nationalist

pattern:

the Romanians

were

the oldest

population

in

Transylvania,

the

result of

the Roman

conquest

and Dacian

endurance;

the

Hungarians

came

to

Europe

from Asia

in the ninth

century

and

conquered

Transylvania

in

the eleventh

century;

the Szeklers

were

either

descendants of the

Huns

or

related

to

the

Bulgarians

(but

they

were

cer

tainly Magyarized

before

the

Hungarians

arrived

in

the

Carpathian

basin);

and the Germans

(Saxons

in

the

center

of

Transylvania;

Swabians

in the

Banat

and the

Partium)

settled

gradually

between the

twelfth

and

the

eighteenth

centuries.

The

Wellisch

index for these

groups

was

as

follows:

that

of the

Romanians

was

between 1.16

and

1.31;

the

Hun

garians

between 1.17

and

1.19;

the

Szeklers

between

1.22

and

1.35;

finally,

the

Germans

(both

groups)

between

1.23

and

1.41.84

Based

on

these

figures, R?mneantu concluded: Serological study is thus an important in

strument

of

history

and,

at

the

same

time,

an

admirable

way

to

research

anthroposocial phenomena.

By

knowing

the

serological

properties

of dif

ferent

nations,

we

realize

that

their

individuality

is

not

dependent

on ex

ternal

circumstances

but

on

hereditary

characteristics. 85

A

further

example

of

how racial research

was

instrumental

in

the

cre

ation

of

the

Romanian

biopolitical

utopia

is

R?mneanfu's

considerable

re

search

on

the Catholic communities

in

Moldova

known

as

the

Csangos.

81. This exercise in racial

mapping

continued after the war,

especially

in the

period

between

1945

and

1947

when

some

of the territories

that Romania lost in

1940,

like north

ern

Transylvania,

were

reintegrated

into the

Romanian

state.

See Peter

R?mneantzu,

The

Biological

Grounds

and the

Vitality

of

the

Transilvanian Rumanians

(Cluj,

1946).

82.

I.

F?c?oaru,

Contribute

la

studiul

compoziiiei morfologice

a

rom?nilor

din

Rep?blica

Moldoveneasc?

(Bucharest,

1944),

4.

See also

Iordache

F?c?oaru,

Cercet?ri

antropologice

in

patru

sate

din

Transnistria

(unpublished

paper,

1943)

available

on

microfilm,

Holo

caust

Memorial Museum

Institute,

f.

2242,

op.

1,

RG-31.004,

reel 4

(I

would like

to

thank

Radu Ioanid

and

Carl

Modig

for their

help

in

obtaining

this

manuscript).

F?c?oaru and

his

wife,

Tilly, belonged

to

a

group

of

Romanian research

teams

assigned by

the

Roman

ian

Social Institute and Central

Institute

of

Statistics

to

complete

the

social,

economic,

cul

tural,

and

racial evaluations of

the Romanian

population

in

Transnistria.

See Anton

Ga

lopenfia,

Rom?nii de la

est

de

Bug,

2

vols.

(Bucharest,

2006).

83. Petru

R?mneanfu, Distribuya

grupelor

de

s?nge

la

populaba

din

Transilvania,

Buletin

eugenic

si

biopolitic\2,

nos.

9-12

(1941):

137-59;

and

P.

R?mneanfu

and

V.

Lusirea,

Contribufii

noi la studiul

seroetnic al

populafiei

din

Romania,

Ardealul

medical^,

no.

12

(1942):

503-11.

84.

R?mneanfu,

Distribuya

grupelor

de

s?nge,

152-56.

85.

Ibid.,

158.





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434

Slavic

Review

Figure

2.

Racial

Biological

Indexes. From P.

R?mneantu,

Grupele

de

s?nge

la

Ciang?ii

din

Moldova,

Buletin

eugenic

?i

biopolitic

14,

nos.

1-2

(1943):

64.

Two

historiographie

theories

on

the

origin

of the

Csangos predominated

in

the interwar

period,

especially

within

Hungarian historiography:

the

Csangos

were

either

a

group

that became

separated

from the

Magyar

tribes

as

they

headed towards the Pannonian

plain,

or

they

were

Mag

yarized

Cumans.

R?mneantu

contested both

theories;

he

developed

a

fully

articulated

racial

interpretation

of the

Csangos

in

keeping

with

the main

tenets

of Romanian

nationalism

(see

figure

2).86

Based

on

the

1941

census

(a

census

that considered

race to

be

a

category

of identifi

cation)

R?mneantu

asserted that there

were

only

8,523

Csangos

in

Moldova,

a

group

that

was

characterized

by

their

use

of

Romanian and

their

Catholicism.87

R?mneantu,

however,

explicitly

discarded the central

argument

of

Csango

self-identification,

namely

that their

Catholicism

86.

P.

R?mneantu,

Grupele

de

s?nge

la

Ciang?ii

din

Moldova,

Buletin

eugenic

si

biopolitic

14,

nos.

1-2

(1943):

51-65.

87.

Ibid.,

52.





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Race,

Blood,

and

Biopolitics

in

Interwar

Romania

435

conflicted

with

their

being

Romanian.

A

priori,

he

declared,

I

rejected

the

fact

that

Csango

and

Catholic

are

identical notions. 88

Accordingly,

R?mneantu

divided

the

Csangos

into

four

categories:

1)

Orthodox

Ro

manians

speaking

Romanian;

2)

Catholic Romanians

speaking

Roman

ian;

3)

Catholic

Romanians

speaking

Hungarian;

and

finally,

4)

Catholic

Hungarians

speaking

Hungarian.

All

four

groups,

however,

had

similar

blood

groups

and

genes. 89

R?mneanfu's

Romanian ethnic

utopia

also favored

the

emergence

of

a new

biological

model of

identity:

once

certain blood

groups

had been

defined

as

representing

Romanian

national

identity,

the

only possible

ex

planation

for

their

occurrence

in

other ethnic

groups

was

that these

groups

were,

in

fact,

Romanians who had

been

exposed

to

cultural

and

linguistic

environments

different

from

that of

other

Romanians.

This view

portrayed

the Szeklers

and

the

Csangos

as

racially

Romanian,

since

both

groups

belong

to

the

same

autochthonous

race

described

by

Popovici;

their

contradictory

national identification

can

be

explained

by

centuries

of

Magyarization.

Serology,

R?mneanfu

believed,

helped

rectify

historical

conundrums

about the ethnic

mixing

in

Transylvania

while also drasti

cally

revising

fundamental

assumptions

about the national

origin

of

the

non-Romanians.

The ethnic

appropriation

of

the

Csangos

reached

a

critical

stage

in

1944,

when

R?mneanfu

published

Die

Abstammung

der

Tschangos,

arguably

the most radical reconstruction of the national past of a minority ethnic

group

attempted

in

modern Romania.90 The

first

part

of

the book

con

centrates

on

historical narratives

about the

Csangos.

Enlisting

the

works

of

religious

missionaries,

linguists,

and

historians,

R?mneanfu

sought

to

establish the verisimilitude

of

his

interpretation

by constructing

as

com

prehensive

a

description

of

the

Csangos

as

possible.

As

evidence,

he

brought

forward

extensive

investigations

into the

geographical

distribu

tion

and

demographic

structure

of

the

Csangos:

he amassed

historical

records,

identified the

Csango villages

in

Moldova,

and offered

plausible

explanations

for

their

ethnonym.

In

many

respects,

R?mneanfu

was a

meticulous researcher who accompanied his historical and linguistic ar

guments

with evidence from

medieval

chronicles,

and his

speculations

with confirmation

from

contemporary

historiography.91

He

was

also

un

reservedly

nationalistic.

Consider the

issue of

religion,

for

instance.

No scholar

before R?m

neanfu

had

questioned

the

fact that the

Csangos

were

Catholic.

Disman

tling

the

synonymy

between Catholic

and

Csango ?one

of the

most

contentious

of

the claims first

put

forward

in

his 1943

article?served

as

the

introduction

to

R?mneanfu's

discussion

of

racial

serology.

His

em

phasis

on

Catholicism

not

being

an

aspect

of the

racial

identity

of the

88.

Ibid.,

54.

This

highly

nationalistic

interpretation

of historical

sources

was

also

ap

plied

to

Catholic

Romanians

in

Moldova,

whom

R?mneantu

declared

to

be

Catholicized

Orthodox Romanians.

89.

R?mneantu,

Grupele

de

s?nge

la

Ciang?ii,

60-63.

90. Petru

R?mneantu,

Die

Abstammung

der

Tschangos

(Sibiu,

1944).

91.

Ibid.,

7-29.





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436

Slavic Review

Csangos

was

invested with

national

significance,

and it

is

not

difficult

to

see

why:

within this

unsettling

issue,

the line

traditionally

drawn between

autochthonous

Orthodoxy

and

foreign

Catholicism

was

treated

as a

fun

damental distinction

between

racially

different

nations?just

as

it

was

for

other

apostles

of

Orthodoxy

in

interwar Romania.92

The

second

part

of

R?mneanfu's

book

concentrates

on

the

impor

tance

of

serological

research for national

affiliation. After

first

discussing

the

individuality

of

blood and

summarizing

the main

arguments

about

the

hereditary

properties

of

blood,

R?mneanfu

examined the

ethnic

meaning

of

blood

groups.

The

outline

provided

here

repeats

the racial

arguments

that

R?mneanfu

had been

articulating

since the

early

1930s.

In

direct

reference

to

the

Csangos,

R?mneanfu

did,

however,

amend

the

racial

typology

introduced

in

1943, whereby

the

Csangos

were

now

nomi

nally

divided

into Romanians

by

blood

and

Hungarians by

blood,

re

spectively.93

A section

on

racial

morphology

that

catalogued

physical

char

acteristics such

as

height,

hair

color,

and nasal index

completed

his

examination.

According

to

R?mneanfu,

the

ambiguity

concerning

the

ethnic

origin

of the

Csangos

had

finally

been resolved:

racially, they

were

Romanians.94

The ethnic

engineering proposed

in Die

Abstammung

der

Tschangos

sur

passed previous representations

of

the

relationship

between

the

Roman

ian

majority

and ethnic minorities

in

Romania. The racial

mythology

R?mneanfu advocated was indeed radical; yet itwas well integrated within

a

nationalist

culture

that

became

prevalent

in Romania

after 1940:

a

cul

ture

composed

of

clusters

of

biopolitical

ideas and

practices.

R?mneanfu

could

thus advance the

new

program

of

national

regeneration

by

invok

ing

political

(Hungarian

revisionism,

for

example)

as

well

as

national

ne

cessities

(the

holy

war

for

the

reunification

of

lost

territories).95

Racial Commandments

and Totalitarian

Biopolitics

In

order

to

comprehend

the

relationship

between

anthropology,

serol

ogy,

and

biopolitics,

one must

investigate

racial studies, not

only

in their

most

technical

formulations

(charts,

diagrams,

mathematical

equations,

and

so

on),

but also

in the

popularly

reiterated

images

that traversed

in

terwar

sociology

and

history,

among

other

fields

of

study.96

In

many

con

92.

Most

prominently

in

the

1938

manifesto

Programul

statului etnocratic

pro

posed

by

the

poet

and

Orthodox

philosopher

Nichifor Crainic. See Nichifor

Crainic,

Orto

doxie

si

etnocratie.

Cu

o

anex?:

Programul

statului etnocratic

(Bucharest,

1938),

284.

93.

R?mneanfu,

Die

Abstammung

der

Tschangos,

43

-

48.

94.

Csango priests

themselves

adopted

R?mneanfu's

racial narrative

(although

not

his negation of Csango Catholicism). See Iosif

P.

Pal, Origtnea

catolicilor din

Moldova

si

fran

ciscana

lor,

p?storii

lor

de veacuri

(Roman, 1941).

Later this view

was

integrated

into the

stan

dard

Romanian discourse

on

the

Csangos

developed

during

communism.

See Dumitru

Martinas^

The

Origins

of

the

Csangos

(1985;

reprint,

Ia?i,

1999).

95. Petru

R?mneanfu,

Probleme

etno-biopolitice

ale

Transilvaniei,

Transilvania

74,

no.

5

(1943):

325-48.

96.

In

1934,

the Romanian

philosopher

Petre

P.

Negulescu provided

a

comprehen

sive

investigation

into

biological

theories of

belonging. Preoccupied

with

deciphering

cul

tural

mechanisms

that could

influence the

formation of national

identity,

Negulescu

also





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Race,

Blood,

and

Biopolitics

in

Interwar Romania 437

temporary

responses

to

this

problem,

sociologists

and

historians

often

imagined

national

metamorphoses

centered

upon

racial

content.97

In the

closing

section

of this

article,

I

shall look

at

some

specific

racial

arguments

that further reveal the intimate links between racial anthro

pology,

serology,

and theories

of

national

identity.

Racial

eugenicists

such

as

F?c?oaru

and

R?mneanfu

stand

not

as

exceptions

but

as

representa

tives

of

a

general

intellectual

and

political

process

that

I

see as

the biolo

gization

of national

belonging.

This

process

should be

clarified,

for

it is

important

to

note

that Romanian

biopolitics

was

integrated

within

the

logic

of ethnic

ontology

and

paradigmatic

modernism

so

convincingly

described

by

Antohi

and

Roger

Griffin.98

In

its

broader

sense

(to

include

racial nationalism

and

antisemitism),

the

biologization

of national be

longing

was

not

merely

a

primitive

simplification

of

racism

or a

pseudo

scientific

distortion

of

eugenics;

it

was a

defensive

response

to

forms

of

collective

and individual

fragmentation

brought

about

by

the

cultural,

political,

social,

and

economic transformations of

European modernity

during

the

interwar

period.99

If ideas

of

national

rebirth

provided

the

framework

for the

biologiza

tion of

national

belonging

as

it

developed

during

the

interwar

period,

racist fantasies also

proved inspirational

to

those

who wished

to

see

Ro

mania

complete

its

ethnic revolution.

Sabin

Manuil? outlined his

version

of the

Romanian

racial

biopolitics

thus: The

goal

of

our

population pol

icy should

be

to

gather all Romanians

in

one

place

and

to

eliminate

from

our

body

all

minorities

manifesting

centrifugal

tendencies. Manuil?

based this

biopolitical

program

on

racial

commandments,

including

pro-natalism;

the

programmatic

solution

to

the

Jewish

question ;

effi

cient solutions

to

combat

the

danger

of

Gypsy

racial

influence ;

and

finally practical eugenic

measures,

such

as

sterilization

of

those

consid

ered

dysgenic.

Deploring

the

fact that the

country

that

gave

the

world the

term

biopolitics

lacked

a

proper

institution

dedicated

to

racial

policy,

Manuil?

suggested creating

a

Superior

Council for the

Protection

of

Race,

which

would

address racial

issues

scientifically

and

in accord

with

the political governance of the new regime.100

reflected

on

the

relationship

between racial

serology

and

national

essence.

He

skeptically

concluded that Not

even

through

the

analysis

of

blood

can

we?at

least

not

yet?estab

lish

the

existence of

a

'national

specificity.'

See

P. P.

Negulescu,

Geneza

formelor

culturii:

Priviri

critice

asupra factorilor

ei

determinant

(Bucharest, 1934),

375.

97.

See,

for

example,

Ion

Foti,

Concep?a

eroic?

a

rasei

(Bucharest, 1936);

and

Alexan

dru

Randa,

Rasism rom?nese

(Bucharest, 1941).

98.

Roger

Griffin,

Tunnel Visions and

Mysterious

Trees:

Modernist

Projects

of

Na

tional

and Racial

Regeneration,

1880-1939,

in

Turda and

Weindling,

eds.,

Blood and

Homeland,

417-56;

and

Antohi,

Romania and

the

Balkans:

From

Geocultural

Bovarism

to

Ethnic

Ontology.

99.

Roger

Griffin,

The

Palingenetic

Political

Community: Rethinking

the

Legitima

tion of Totalitarian

Regimes

in

Interwar

Europe,

Totalitarian

Movements

and Political Reli

gions

3,

no.

3

(2002):

24-43.

100. Sabin

Manuil?,

Comandamentele rassiale

?i

poli

tica

de

populate,

Romania

nou?

7,

no.

17

(26

October

1940):

3.

Many

of these ideas

were

also

discussed

in

Manuil?

Acfiunea

eugenic?

ca

factor de

politic?

de

populate,

Buletin

eugenic

si

biopolitic

12,

nos.

1-4

(1941):

1-4.





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438

Slavic

Review

In

a

series of articles

dedicated

to

totalitarian

biopolitics,

the

sociolo

gist

Traian Herseni also

stressed the

relationship

between

eugenics

and

racial nationalism.

In

Mitul

s?ngelui

(The

myth

of

blood),

for

instance,

Herseni

expressed

his

adherence

to

eugenics,

glorifying

both the

Nazi

revolution and

the

need for

racial

palingenesis

in

Romania.

A

race,

he

observed,

can

be

kept

in

existence,

purified,

increased,

and

improved by

hereditary

means,

hence the

possibility

and

necessity

of

a

racial,

eugenic

policy.

Nazi

Germany

was,

in

Herseni's

opinion,

the

perfect

racial

state,

one

whose racial and

eugenic

policies

further

amplified

the

traditional

aura

of cultural

superiority

characterizing

the

German nation:

With

the

help

of

eugenics,

a

nation controls its

destiny.

It

can

systematically

improve

its

qualities

and

reach

the

highest

stages

of

accomplishment

and human

creativity:

Hitler's

genius

consists

of

a

clear vision

of

this

possibility. 101

Having

nurtured

such

ideas,

it

should

come

as no

surprise

that,

when

meditating

on

potential discriminatory

measures

against

minorities

in

Romania

(Jews

and

Roma

especially),

Herseni's

language

became

overtly

racist.

By

1941,

Herseni's ideas

for

introducing

biopolitical

laws

in

Roma

nia

as

the basis

for

national

regeneration, including

social

segregation

and

deportation,

were

fully developed:

The

racial

purification

of the

Ro

manian

nation

is

a

matter

of

life and death.

It

cannot

be

neglected,

post

poned,

or

half-solved.

The scientific

language supplied

by eugenics

was

thus fused with a racist

vocabulary,

which in turn echoed Romanian anti

semitism:

Without

doubt the

decay

of

the Romanian nation is

to

be

at

tributed

to

inferior

racial

elements

infiltrating

our

ethnic

group;

to

the

ancient,

Dacian-Roman

blood

being

contaminated

by

Phanariot

and

Gypsy

blood,

and

recently

by Jewish

blood. 102

New

biological

elites,

Herseni

announced,

a

Legionary super-nation,

not

social

and

political

institutions,

would

be the

state's

main vehicle for

spreading

the

gospel

of

eugenics.

This

would

entail

a

new

national moral

ity, physical

fitness,

and the instruction

of

larger

masses

of

Romanians. Eu

genics,

in

both

its

positive

and

negative

forms,

was

at

the

center

of

Herseni's

biopolitical

program:

Once

the

evaluation

and social selection based

on

racial

qualities

has been

achieved,

the

most

difficult

action?but also the

most

efficient

through

its

qualitative

and

long-lasting

results?must

follow:

eugenics,

which

is the

improvement

of the

race

through

heredity.

We

need

eugenic

laws

and

eu

genic

practices.

Reproduction

cannot

be

leftunsupervised.

The science

of

heredity (genetics)

clearly

demonstrates

that human societies have

at

their

disposal

infallible

means

for

physical

and

psychological

improve

ment?but

for

this

to

happen

there

can

be

no

random

reproduction

(and

thus

the transmission

of

hereditary

defects)

;

and those

possessing quali

ties

cannot

be left

without

offspring.

Those

dysgenic

should be banned

from

reproduction;

inferior

races

should be

completely

separated

from

the

[Romanian]

ethnic

group.

Sterilization

of certain

categories

of indi

101.

Traian

Herseni,

Mitul

s?ngelui,

Cuv?ntul

17,

no.

41

(23

November

1940):

2.

102.

Traian

Herseni,

Rasa

?i

destin

national,

Cuv?ntul

18,

no.

91

(16

January

1941):

1.





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Race,

Blood,

and

Biopolitics

in Interwar Romania

439

viduals

should

not

be

considered

an

affront

to

human

dignity:

it is

a

eulogy

to

beauty,

morality,

and

perfection,

in

general.103

The

biologization

of

national

belonging

advocated

by eugenics

and

racial

anthropology

thus became

a

form

of

political

identity

clearly

associ

ated with

the form of fascist national

revolution

prophesized by

the Iron

Guard.

Some,

like

F?c?oaru,

argued

that:

Regulations

of

[hereditary]

se

lection

and

eugenic

ideas,

in

general,

are

outlined

in

the

testament

of

our

captain

[Corneliu

Zelea

Codreanu].

We have

a

duty

to

fulfill

it

faithfully.

Otherwise,

the nation

will

be

depleted

of

its

best

biological

roots.

The

protection

of

our

most

precious

possession,

our

biological

patrimony,

should become

a

state

commandment. 104

On

14

October

1940,

F?c?oaru

was

appointed

director

of

the

Department

of

Higher

Education in the

Ministry of National Education by the Legionary government.105 In this

new

position,

he devised

a

biopolitical

plan

based

primarily

on

controlling

marriage. Eugenic

regulations

concerning

marriage

should

at

first

be

applied

exclusively

to

legionaries,

he

declared,

as

they

were

those who

understood that

the nation

is

above

the

individual. Then

the

eugenic

legislation

will be

applied

to

the

entire nation.

To

promote

such

a

transformation,

F?c?oaru

suggested establishing

Offices

for

Pre-Nuptial

Consultations,

where

couples

could

be

examined and

receive health

certificates.

Initially,

such

certificates would

be

compulsory

only

for

le

gionaries,

and

optional

for the

rest

of

the

population.

Ultimately,

F?c?oaru

declared, the

Legionary

state should extend such

practices

to the

army

and

other

professional

categories. 106

Other

authors,

like

R?mneanfu,

outlined

the need for

a

Romanian

totalitarian

demography

based

on

the

examples

offered

by Germany

and

Italy.

According

to

R?mneanfu,

the

political

and

spiritual

revolu

tions initiated

by

Nazism and

fascism

allowed both

states

to

succeed

in

creating

a

totalitarian attitude and

restoring

spiritual

values,

together

103.

Ibid.,

7.

The

Legionary

idea

of the

healthy

and

reproductive

nation

was

fully

de

veloped

during

communism. See Gail

Kligman,

The Politics

of

Duplicity:

Controlling

Repro

duction in Ceausescus Romania (Berkeley, 1998). Interestingly, both F?c?oaru and R?m

neanfu

lived until

the late

1970s

and

thus

witnessed

Ceausescu's

policies

of

natalism

and

anti-abortion,

to

which

R?mneanfu,

at

least,

thought

he could be

of

assistance.

See

Bucur,

Eugenics

and

Modernization

in

Interwar

Romania,

240;

and

Maria

Bucur,

Miscarea

eugenist?

?i

rolurile

de

gen,

in

Maria

Bucur and

Mihaela

Miroiu, eds.,

Patriarhat

si

emancipare

in

is

toria

g?ndirii

politice

rom?nesti

(Ia?i, 2002),

139-42.

104. Iordache

F?c?oaru,

N?rmele

eugenice

?n

organizafiile

legionare,

Cuv?ntul

17,

no.

69

(21

December

1940):

1.

105. See

Arhivele

Nationale

ale

Rom?niei,

Ministerul

Inv?f?mantului,

f.

854/1940.

Bucur

is mistaken

when she

assumes

that

F?c?oaru

held

an

important

government

posi

tion,

controlling

the

implementation

of

public

health

measures. See

Bucur,

Eugenics

and

Modernization in

Interwar

Romania,

39. Nor

did

F?c?oaru become

the

ideologue

ofthat

re

gime

in matters

relating

to

health,

biology,

and

race

purity, using

eugenics

as

the

basis for

his

arguments

and

programs

of

action.

Ibid.

Interestingly,

F?c?oaru

even

expressed

reti

cence

about

accepting

the

position

in the

Ministry

of

National

Education,

arguing

that

he

would

be

more

helpful

in

science,

where he

could

not

be

replaced,

than

at

the

ministry

where

many

could fulfil

his

duties.

F?c?oaru,

N?rmele

eugenice

?n

organizafiile

le

gionare,

1.

106.

F?c?oaru,

N?rmele

eugenice

?n

organizafiile

legionare,

2.





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440

Slavic

Review

with

the

faith

of

the

citizens in

the

future

of the

nation and

the

insti

tution

of the

family. 107

In

the

1940s

it

thus

became

possible

to

see

the

fascination

with

race

as

a

glorification

of

the

national

revival that

was

most

exemplarily

carried out

by

the

Legionary

movement. As the historian P. P.

Panaitescu

declared:

We

are

not

only

the

sons

of

the

earth,

but

we

belong

to

a

great

race,

a race

that is

perpetuated

in

us,

the Dacian

race.

The Le

gionary

movement,

which has

awakened

the

deepest

echoes

of

our na

tional

being,

has

also

raised

'Dacian'

blood

to

a

place

of

honor. 108

The

to

talitarian

biopolitics

that

F?c?oaru

and

R?mneanfu

located

in

the

eugenic

transformation

of

the

individual and the

family

was

relocated

by

Panaitescu in

a

historical call

from

Romania's

Dacian

past,

as

the

nation

was now

expected

to

fully

embrace immortal

categories

of

identity.109

The blood

and

soil rhetoric

helped

formulate

a

new

biopolitical

program,

one

whose

purpose

was

to

prepare

the

chosen race

(the

Ro

manians)

,

at

the

expense

of

ethnic

minorities,

for the

onset

of

a

racial

utopia:

the

Romanian ethnic

state.110 loan V.

Gruia,

professor

of

law

at

the

University

of

Bucharest

and minister

of

justice,

confirmed

this

in

1940

on

the

occasion of the

introduction

of

antisemitic

racial laws

in

Romania:

We consider Romanian

blood

as a

fundamental

element

in

the

founding

of

the

nation. 111

In

interwar

Romania,

emphasis

was

placed

upon

racial

characteristics

and their connection to specific mechanisms of national identification

and classification.

They

were

also

associated with all

the other

processes

intrinsic

to

discussions

about

national

identity,

such

as

national

particu

larity,

historical

destiny,

ethnic

assimilation,

and

racial

supremacy.

More

over,

to

engage

in

discussions

about

national

essence

and racial

character

during

the

interwar

period

was

to

focus

on

physical

descriptions

and,

con

sequently,

on

the

nation

as a

physical entity?as

an

object?existing

in

and

through

its

exchanges

with

other

nations

and

races.

For

this

reason,

toward the end

of

the

1930s,

Romanian

anthropology

and

serology

more

closely

resembled

a

political

program

than

a

scientific

agenda. In the dialogue between science and politics, the same motiva

107.

Petru

R?mneafu,

M?suri de

pol?tica

demogr?fica

?i

pol?tica

demogr?fica

to

tali

-

tar?,

Buletin

eugenic

si

biopolitic

11,

nos.

1-2

(1940):

44-45.

See also

George

Stroescu,

Se

lecfia

rasial?

?i

politica populatiei

?n noul

stat

legionary,

Buna

vestir?

4,

no.

87

(28

De

cember

1940):

2.

108. P. P.

Panaitescu,

Noi

suntem

de

aici,

Cuv?ntul

17,

no.

38

(20

November

1940):

1.

109.

See

AI.

Manuil?,

Originea

neamului rom?nese ?n

interpretarea

sa

biol?gica

(Bucha

rest,

1943).

110. See

Petru

R?mneantu,

S?nge

?i

glie,

Buletin

eugenic

si

biopolitic

14,

nos.

11-12

(1943)

:

370-92;

and

Petru

R?mneanfu,

Inrudirea de

s?nge,

Buletin

eugenic

si

biopolitic

14,

nos.

7-8

(1943):

220-37.

111. loan V.

Gruia,

Expunere

de motive la decretul

lege

nr.

2650/1940

privitor

la

re

glementarea

situajiei

juridice

a

evreilor din

Romania,

Monitorul

Official

183

(9

August

1940),

reproduced

in

Martiriul evreilor

din

Romania,

1940-1944:

Documente

si

m?rturii

(Bucharest,

1991),

14-21.

See

also

Eugen

Dimitrie

Petit,

Originea

?tnica

(Bucharest,

1941);

and

Gheorghe

Vornica,

Originea

etnic?

sau

de

s?nge,

Transilvania

72,

no.

8

(1941):

589-91.





7/27/2019 20060295.pdf


Race,

Blood,

and

Biopolitics

in Interwar Romania

441

tions that

universalized

racial

anthropology

also nationalized

it;

the

same

developments

that

made

craniometry,

serology,

and

other

anthropom?t

rie

experiments

fundamental

to

anthropology

also

gave

rise

to

their

being

championed

within the contested field of national identification.

Debates

over

the

nature

of

national

identity

in

interwar

Romania

can

never

be

adequately

addressed,

if attention

concentrates

only

on

literary

arguments

about the

national

essence.

To

be

sure,

anthropological

and

serological

definitions of

national

belonging

do

not

make

other debates

on

the

nation

less

important,

but

they

do

indicate

that the

origins

of

eu

genic

programs

of

biopolitical

rejuvenation,

such

as

those described

in

this

article,

are

to

be

sought

not

only

in

critiques

of

parliamentary

de

mocracy

and liberal

politics

(as

Maria

Bucur

has

argued)

but

more

im

portantly

in

the

attempt

to

achieve

a

new

national

body

amid

alleged

do

mestic

spiritual

decline

( modernity's

ontological

crisis

according

to

Roger

Griffin)

and

unfavorable international conditions

(territorial

losses

and

war).112

During

the interwar

period,

cultural histories

of the nation

often

intersected with

racial

narratives

of

national

belonging.

Indeed,

the

need for

the

rejuvenation

of the

ethnic

community

shared

by

most

Ro

manian

intellectuals

at

the

time

was

based

on

the

palingenetic myth

of

national

renewal,

comprising

both the

idea

of

spiritual metamorphosis

and

its fulfillment in

a new

ethnic

ontology.

112.

Bucur, Eugenics

and Modernization

in

Interwar

Romania, 222; Griffin,

Tunnel

Vi

sions and

Mysterious

Trees,

133.

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